Environmental Education in Freiburg

"You see only what you know, and you protect only what you are familiar with." This motto of Freiburg's Nature Adventure Trail still holds true: environment and nature protection must be experienced in the shape of concrete objects and offer a tangible and understandable experience if it is to be successful. Environmental education commences in kindergarten and elementary school.

School Commitment

Numerous initiative groups, projects and smart ideas, such as the Benefit Run in aid of the extension of the school's own solar generation plant demonstrate how dedicated Freiburg's schools are when it comes to protecting the climate. The city supports many of these waste prevention or water and energy saving projects with money and equipment.

Opportunities of Extracurricular Learning

There is a host of extracurricular environmental education opportunities under city guidance. For example, the Forestry Office maintains Nature Adventure and Instructional Forest Trails, offers guided tours and project days for school classes, or supports privately-organised Forest Kindergartens offering playful access to the forest as an ecosystem by providing locations and forest-educational knowledge.

WaldHaus Freiburg

From 2008 on, WaldHaus Freiburg will initiate a new competence centre, with subjects relating to the forest and to sustainability. WaldHaus is aimed at contributing to bundling and professionalising offers in the field of forest and environmental education and promoting the exchange in the subject spectrum forest and sustainability beyond the boundaries of states and specialising disciplines.

Eco-Station Freiburg

The Freiburg Eco-Station is the environmental education centre of the region. Every year about 15,000 visitors attend over 600 events in the low-energy building in the Freiburg Seepark.

Apart from innovative projects in the fields of environmental education, education for sustainable development, nature conservation and migration/integration, projects are organised for the general public under the umbrella of the Local Agenda 21 and with the aim of promoting citizen involvement. There are workshops for multipliers, and guided tours are offered for specialist technical visitors on the topics of environmental education, sustainable development, regenerative energies, waste avoidance, nature conservation and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

The organic garden is a particular gem. It covers an area of about 2,500 m2 and has more than 100 medicinal plants.

Mundenhof - KonTiKi

Stadtgut Mundenhof is a deer enclosure, eco-business and nature educational centre all in one. In the KonTiKi project children and school classes learn how to handle pets from all over the world and thus, playfully experience interesting aspects of keeping animals in a way that is appropriate to the species, as well as of nature and environmental conservation.

Planetarium Freiburg

Freiburg's planetarium not only looks out to remote galaxies, but also sets its focus on planet Earth and her biosphere, with subjects such as the hydrological cycle, the greenhouse effect, or the significance of the sun in the supply of power.

ScienceNet Region Freiburg

Since July 2007, teachers, school students and other interested parties can use this internet portal to get an overview of more than 260 curricular and extracurricular environmental education offers from 60 providers.