There's No Such Thing as Bad Weather: A Scandinavian Mom's Secrets for Raising Healthy, Resilient, and Confident Kids (from Friluftsliv to Hygge)

by Linda Åkeson McGurk

Come spring, the children at Nora’s preschool also start to visit their “school forest,” about a fifteen-minute walk from the preschool, on a more regular basis. School forests are sections of woods that can be used by schools and preschools for outdoor play and environmental education, and in Sweden there are over one thousand of them. The concept was developed in the 1980s as a collaboration between private landowners and schools to increase children’s knowledge of forests and the forestry industry. Typically, the agreement with the landowner allows the school to alter the environment beyond what’s permitted through allemansrätten—for example, by marking trails, making fire pits, building shelters, putting up signs, and, in some cases, even cutting down trees.