With­in the frame­work of the project «Con­struct­ing bird sanc­tu­ar­ies to devel­op pro­tect­ed wet­lands areas in Zakarpat­tia» NGO «Ecos­phere» cov­ered the edu­ca­tion­al com­po­nent, in par­tic­u­lar, devel­oped and pub­lished an illus­trat­ed educa­tion­al and method­olog­i­cal man­u­al for younger school­child­ren «Why are wet­lands impor­tant?»

The con­cept author is Katery­na Stankevych-Koval, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the NGO «Ecos­phere», while the text authors are Katery­na Stankevych-Koval and Oksana Stankevych-Volosianchuk, an expert of the NGO «Ecos­phere».

This man­u­al is ded­i­cat­ed to the impor­tance of wet­lands and their role in nat­ur­al process­es and human life. In an acces­si­ble and engag­ing way, the authors explain why wet­lands are so unique and even mys­ti­cal, what wet­lands are, who inhab­its marshy areas and more.

The pub­li­ca­tion con­tains edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als and inter­est­ing facts about wet­lands which every­one should know, as well as sto­ries about the wet­lands of Zakarpat­tia (Black Swamp and Sal­va). It also includes rid­dles, puz­zles, cre­ative tasks and out­door games for chil­dren. Atten­tion is also giv­en to rules of behav­ior near wet­lands and bird­watch­ing.

The man­u­al was devel­oped for edu­ca­tion­al pur­pos­es, aim­ing to form envi­ron­men­tal aware­ness among chil­dren, encour­age them to explore nature and pro­mote a respon­si­ble atti­tude toward wet­lands as valu­able ecosys­tems.

The pub­li­ca­tion was pub­lished with­in the frame­work of the project «Con­struct­ing bird sanc­tu­ar­ies to devel­op pro­tect­ed wet­land areas in Zakarpat­tia».

This project is sup­port­ed by the IKI Small Grants pro­gramme strength­en­ing local solu­tions for effec­tive cli­mate and bio­di­ver­si­ty action. IKI Small Grants is fund­ed by the Fed­er­al Min­istry for the Envi­ron­ment, Cli­mate Action, Nature Con­ser­va­tion and Nuclear Safe­ty (BMUKN) and is run by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Inter­na­tionale Zusam­me­nar­beit (GIZ) GmbH. It is part of Germany’s Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Ini­tia­tive (IKI).