From its very first meeting in 1951, the HSPN Board of Directors decided to promote, in cooperation with IUCN, the publication of informative material “… for the Greek Teacher with useful information concerning the protection of nature …” and send it to all the Primary and Secondary schools of the State.
The Board of Directors secured from IUCN and UNESCO 400 US dollars, a considerable sum at that time, amounting to 6,000,000 drachmas, to produce a guidebook for teachers with instructions on education about nature conservation, as well as an informative booklet for students. The team responsible for creating the material included Iakovos Santorinaios, Professor Maximos Mitsopoulos and well-known author Ilias Venezis. After approval of the material by the Board, 10,000 guidebooks and 50,000 booklets were printed and distributed, in early 1952, to all schools in the country. The Ministry of Education issued a formal circular extolling the work of HSPN. Furthermore, IUCN considered the material of high quality and asked permission to translate it and use it in other countries.
This was applied education about nature, well before the term “environmental education” was even officially conceived.
