FOB - The Forests on Blackboards Project

Since 2012, the “Forests on Blackboards” (FoB) project has been developing educational materials to inspire and enable school children to become involved in tackling local environmental problems. It engages teachers to develop teachers’ manuals that provide knowledge and activities about local environmental issues to school children, and supplementary materials that enable effective use of the manuals. E-learning tools make the manuals available as free downloads and enable evaluation of their use and impact.

The project has been implemented in 3 phases. In the first phase, FORRU-CMU's former education officer, Joy produced award winning teachers' manual for both primary and secondary schools in Kanchanaburi Province (Central Thailand) (2012-15). The books address local environmental issues such as elephant-human conflict. 

In the second phase FORRU-CMU education staff Phai and Som worked with teachers in Chiang Mai Province (North Thailand) (2016-19), on a manual for mid-secondary school children, and built the online e-learning platform, which allows monitoring of the uptake and effectiveness of the materials produced.

In the third phase (2019-22), we worked with teachers in Krabi Province to produce another teacher's manual—this time including coastal and marine ecosystems and wildlife, in addition to the distinctive lowland evergreen forest, unique to the province, where FORRU-CMU has a long history of developing successful restoration techniques.  We also worked with local partner Traidhos to produce an English edition of the Chiang Mai manual. Work on an English version of the Krabi manual is ongoing, in collaboration with NatureMind_Ed. Online e-learning service has been completed in English for Chiang Mai, with Krabi materials to be made available shortly.

For more information, please click on the "Outreach" tab.