The partner school programme of the Hohe Tauern National Park Salzburg has been running since the 2007/08 school year. By now, almost all compulsory schools in the national aprk region between Krimml and Großarltal are official partner schools.
Partner schools
Any primary or secondary modern school located in a national park community or national park region community can become a partner school.
Austria's biggest organic brand "Ja!Natürlich" has been the sponsor for the partner school programme since day one. It is only with the support of this partner that the programme can be run at this scale.
This allows the national park administration to make available pedagogically valuable teaching aids and support by the national park rangers on site at no cost.
Likewise, partner schools are offered a wide range of environmental education programmes as well as visiting the national park workshop in Hollersbach or the national park ScienceCenters in Mittersill. Here the focus is on knowledge transfer combined with experiences – as this "pedagogy of experiencing nature" is an essential prerequisite for generating not only "retrievable" knowledge but also action awareness – the only way for children to identify with the national park concept. But those are by far not all benefits the schools enjoy. They can, for example, call themselves "National Park Partner Schools" and use the logo, borrow national park material, use the digital picture library "National Park Partner Schools" at www.hohetauern.at and much more.
Another highlight for the partner schools is the biannual partner school festival, which the national park has already organised a few times now. All students of the partner schools are invited, resulting in no less than 1,600 participants. In order to make this festival unforgettable, many different stations were set up consisting of riddles, knowledge attributes and activity stations.
