The forest through the mental representations of children in preschool education

The purpose of this research is to explore and enrich the mental representations of pre-school education children of the natural environment, through the exploitation of theoretical principles and methodological tools and in particular for the the thematic of the forest. The importance of the concept of forest was explored in children aged 5-6 years, from urban and semi-urban areas, mountainous and island situated kindergartens, by primary education teachers who had a variety of teaching service. Children"s drawing was used as a means of collecting the data. The analysis of children"s drawing in kindergarden is initially presented when they start school and without any educational intervention and then the mental representations of children are re-recorded using their drawings again, after the implementation of a whole-round and systematically organized intervention designed by the teacher, taking into account the earlier representations of children. The results of the analysis of children"s plans are presented on the basis of the axes on which they were analysed and categorised, showing that pre-school children can capture design complex relationships interdependence and interaction of elements of the natural environment, provided that the corresponding educational intervention is preceded. At the same time, it is attempted to capture the difficulties encountered by preschool teachers in the implementation of environmental education interventions in kindergarten. Research results in the emergence of important research perspectives at empirical and teaching level.