Center for School and Outdoor Education (CŠOD) is a public institution that has been providing implementation since 1992 nature schools and other outdoor programs for elementary and high school youth.
There are 27 centres (homes) located in the Central School of Education, which are spread all over Slovenia, from Gorenjska, Styria, Carinthia to Primorska in the Dolenjska region. Centers are away from the city, which they do implementation of programs in nature, learning about local changes in the population.
The work of the CŠOD extends into the fields of education, sports, science and culture. These include performing weekly in-kind school programs for students and children with special needs (natural sciences week, social science week, sports week, mandatory content week), activity days (natural science, cultural, sports and tech daily), and weekend programs for active holidays.
The emphasis is positive regarding to nature and sustaining development. Positive development is the need of young people in an adapted program because of their life in communication. In addition to the home, there is also a day care center with 39 one-day programs that get to know the Karst, a visit to the Ljubljana Marshes, along the Prešeren Trail, the Cave Dimnice, the Karst Edge, …
In addition to the programs in the CŠOD nature school, they also carry out active vacation programs in various activities, sports associations and other non-profit organizations. In the homes, employees are technical staff or professors, teachers, instructors who run the programs. The teaching staff is a key promoter for acting in nature development programs. CŠOD employs 361 people, of which 122 are pedagogical staff who provides programs for children workers (teachers, instructors and leaders who also carry out the program).We teach young people a healthy lifestyle and get acquainted with the basics of a wide variety of sports. Thus, activities range from archery, rock climbing, hiking, orienteering, elementary movement to professional swimming, skiing and cross-country skiing courses. Here, all participants take swimming and skiing courses and learn how to swim and ski.
The goal of the CŠOD programs is to welcome children and adolescents with fewer opportunities, from socially disadvantaged families and from rural areas, to enable them to get in touch with a wide variety of sports and sporting activities. Not a no-brainer way of showing them the fair plight, the downsides and the harms of doping with recreational athletes. We show them the disadvantages of unhealthy diets and the problem of taking nutritional supplements and nutrients.
In local rural communities, we are actively involved in the sporting life of young people in these settings. We have the appropriate sports facilities to integrate them into sports activities and healthy lifestyles.
Together we have hosted, prepared and implemented more than 20 international youth exchanges so far. However, we attended more than 30 youth exchanges where we were partners. We have worked with partners from Norway, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Portugal, Germany, Italy, France, Romania, Croatia, Poland, Belarus, Georgia, Azerbaijan.
