Improvement of Soil and Water Conservation Outdoor Classrooms and Volunteers in Taiwan

In order to improve the knowledge and understanding of soil and water conservation, the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau, Taiwan sets up soil and water conservation outdoor classrooms and assigns volunteers for on-site commentating. There are 19 soil and water conservation outdoor classrooms and 483 volunteers. In order to intergate education resource and improve quality, the examination of outdoor classrooms and training of the volunteers were conducted. The training programs aimed to improve the standard of living, promote a general mood of voluntary service, and encourage the public to cultivate the value of hometown-treasuring and the sentiment of people-helping. The service system of volunteers was also organized through the training programs. The assessments of soil and water conservation outdoor classrooms were conducted through the on-site investigations. The improvement suggestions were then put forward according to the characteristics of the classrooms. The improvement contents were compiled for each outdoor classroom and there are five common suggestions depicted as follows: 1. the expectations of internationalization; 2. the issues of land leases; 3. improvement of traffic flow; 4. the format and information of explanation boards should be unified; and 5. the issues of facility maintaining. Key words: Soil and water conserveation, Volunteer, Outdoor classroom.