Nature Park Schools

Nature education awakens enthusiasm

Our nature park has always attached great importance to the transfer of knowledge about the wonders of nature, especially for children. We want children to experience & feel nature, and thus gain an understanding of the connections between life and the environment. In a Nature Park School, nature-related content is incorporated into regular lessons so that children learn to experience the beauty and diversity of nature.

We write EDUCATION in capital letters 

The ASO ("Allemeinde Sonderschule") Purkersdorf has been an official and certified "Austrian Nature Park School" since February 14, 2013. Thus, Purkersdorf was one of the first nature parks to establish a nature park school.

Since 7 June 2024, the Purkersdorf primary "Volksschule" and the secondary "Schöffelschule" have joined the ASO "special needs school" to become official Nature Park schools

These three educational institutions form a joint campus and have anchored the nature park in their respective mission statements. Nature park-related topics are incorporated into regular lessons so that the children learn to recognise and appreciate the beauty, diversity and importance of the Vienna Woods. The curriculum content is adapted with a focus on nature and exciting projects are carried out to raise awareness of nature.

In all three schools curriculum content is adapted with a focus on nature and exciting projects are carried out to increase nature awareness: for example, pupils have filled and maintained a large "hotel" for beneficial insects, have designed clay pots, planted them with bee pastures and placed on the Purkersdorf Hauptplatz. They have also built nesting boxes, made forest music instruments or designed a specail school flag and on individual nature park days, the students get directly involved in the area. At least one annual all-day school excursion to a nature park in the region takes place. Together with the nature park, the pupils are busy in the forest every year during the spring field clean-up or discover the individual habitats of the nature park together with the nature park team during educational forest activities. In the 2023/24 school year, the pupils got involved in the school garden and planted regional trees and shrubs, which they are now monitoring.

ASO Special Needs School

The ASO Purkersdorf has worked with the nature park team to establish and regularly maintain the insect hotel, and to paint & plant clay pots with bee-friendly plants and set them up on the Purkersdorf central square. Nesting boxes were built for blue tits, forest music instruments were made, special Advent wreaths were decorated with homemade candles made from honeycomb, a climate flag was designed and dead wood was planted together as a habitat for insects and small mammals. Since 2022/23, the pupils have been involved on individual nature park days, once a month, directly on the site, where they maintain deadwood hedges or snack and herb beds or help with the stable work on the cellar meadow and make friends with the sheep, goats and donkeys. Every year, the school joins all nature park schools in Austria in celebrating Biodiversity Day under a special motto, with the theme of superheroes in 2024. A full-day school trip to a nature park in the region is also organised every school year.

Primary School

Primary school pupils were busy during spring with a field clean-up or with discovering the various habitats of the nature park. They often attend outdoor lessons at the wooden grandstand on the Kellerwiese and have been exploring the climate hedge planted with the ASO school on the campus grounds since the 2023/24 school year, planting flower troughs in the school garden, regularly visiting the bees as Nature Park ambassadors on the Feihlerhöhe or discovering the Wien River and its inhabitants during the "Water Explorer Lab" project at nature discovery trail since 2024.

Primary School Gablitz

Since the 2019/20 school year, the Gablitz primary school has been a partner school for our "Nature Learning Space", in which the species-rich and stimulating natural and cultural landscape of the nature park becomes a place of learning on the doorstep in an "open-air class". We offer the children a natural approach to reading, writing, maths and science lessons. The forest provides a rich repertoire of structures and materials for learning (soil, water, plants, animals, stones) and thus makes knowledge "tangible".

Coming soon: Nature Park Kindergarten 

Preliminary work is currently underway to start a Nature Park Kindergarten with one of the public Purkersdorf kindergarten locations. Our goal is that children gain an emotional connection to nature by learning to feel, smell and taste nature.

You can find more information about "Nature Park School" on the website of the Association of Nature Parks of Austria (VNÖ).