Societal Impact Statement Forests have a positive impact on the health and well‐being of humans. In this study, examination of the human–forest relationship reveals that the experience of being in a forest produces a larger, more nuanced, response than the simple experience of being in a forest itself. This larger experience can encompass an individual's past experiences, childhood memories, history, and connections to cultural representations, which signify a sense of belonging to the ‘more‐than‐human’ world. Insight into the relationships that humans have with forest environments will be important to educators and those wishing to draw attention to the botanical world. Summary It is known that forests have a positive impact on human health and well‐being. The aim of this study was to examine human relationships with forest environments on a different level. Specifically, how people in western Sweden relate to a particular place in a forest. Data were collected using a questionnaire placed on a tree located in a specific forest setting over the course of a year. The results were examined from a phenomenological (the philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness) life‐world perspective that highlights the intersubjectivity and historicity of people's connections to a forest environment. The results reveal that the experience of ‘being’ or ‘doing’ in a forest produces a larger, more nuanced, response than the simple experience itself. This complex response includes an individual's previous experiences, childhood memories, history and connections to cultural representations. Examining and understanding more deeply the relationships that humans have with forests is important for those that aim to engage people with forests and the botanical world.

This article advocates a holistic approach to education concerning literacy and ecological literacy development and builds on data from two different case studies in compulsory school classes in Sweden. The study is built on action-based research and the data material was analysed through directed qualitative content analysis. We argue that place is an aspect of pedagogical settings that needs more consideration in teaching practices, and that various features of education, such as language, meaning-making, literacy development of various kinds, and identity building, are intertwined with place. The results of this study show that interactions between students and direct encountering with two outdoor places are connected with student agency, emancipation and empowerment. The learning opportunities enabled in these two pedagogical settings were, at least in part, due to the teachers' nonprescriptive directions and an "outside-the-box" way of thinking. Such approaches supported and empowered students and allowed them develop critical thinking on their own terms.

This article considers human embodied relationships with the morethan-human world, in the Swedish forest context, and through a phenomenological approach. The research focuses on lived experiences of being-in-the-forest, starting in the author's experiences, using walk-andtalk conversations as inquiry process with study participants. Analysis reveals that (a) childhood experiences seem to play a crucial role in adult experiences of forests; (b) place-identity and sense of belonging are significant elements in how the participants define themselves; (c) being-in-the-forest is connected to an active, exploring and moving body and that the connection with the more-than-human world of the case study forest is deeply anchored as part of the human body. This relationship appears to be shaped through a process of constructing and reconstructing memories, practice and selfhood, and can, it seems, last a lifetime. In the long term, such relationships could have a positive impact on human connections to the more-than-human world.

No abstract

No abstract