Educating to Conserve

“Nature in TV or photos…it seems so surreal and dazzling. But what struck me was the ordinary looking beauty of nature. And somehow that was more beautiful.”

These words of a 16-year old, summed up the experience of the three days as the group of students gathered near the pond, watching the dusk fade into the starlit darkness near the forest. With the sounds of the crickets and the occasional croak of the frog in the background, they started out on a “solo” walk, in silence, with only the light of the stars and the moon.

This was the penultimate day of the school trip. Arriving from Chennai, the children had moved from being uncertain and unsettled to becoming quiet and receptive, over the days. They were participating in an environment education program in Kaigal, a small village along the fringes of the Kaundinya Wildlife Sanctuary, in Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh. They had walked in the forest, played in the stream, learnt from the local farmers how to weed out a field, visited a primary school in the nearby tribal village and tended to the forest nursery and made seed balls to disperse for regeneration. And they had spent time, sitting by the stream or watching the butterflies. They slept on mats on the floor, ate simple, local, food, and had no access to any digital device.

Tightly disciplined, but flowing with the rhythm of the place and the people, the program calmed the group of teenagers as they shook off the nervous excitement of the city. Each one made their own connection with the place, the people and found their own meaning to the work they did. They got over their fear of the wild and were surprised that they could indeed live without the modern trappings. They realized there was much to learn and from so many people around. They saw the beauty of wildlife and experienced the peace of the outdoors, they encountered poverty and saw deprivation, they were shaken and they were touched.

As one of the teachers told me “We have never been to a place like this – did not know how the children would take it. But so good to see them so happy….”.

A different kind of an environment education

This is one of the tens of programs conducted by the Kaigal Education and Environment Program of the Krishnamurti Foundation India (KFI). The environment education program began in 2008, and was offered to school students, aged 6-18 years, in an effort to bring into mainstream curricula a new approach of looking at environment education.

A typical program includes any of the following activities – walk into the forest, interacting with local tribal elders to understand forest biodiversity, mapping land use and documenting biodiversity, collecting seeds and saplings to help maintain a forest nursery, tending to the land and maintaining it, working with local farmers on their farms, interacting with the womens’ self help group to learn about sustainable enterprises and interacting with the schools for tribal children. The programs are anchored by the teachers from the tribal schools and members from the community enterprise, based on local bioresource; together these members manage the conservation and livelihood generation activities of the program as well.

Each program design was unique and the duration, scope of activities and based on the age group and the local conditions during the visit. Experiencing nature first hand and close interaction with the communities were the cornerstones of the program. While field surveys and direct work on the land helped students connect theory with practice, participating and learning with local communities – for farming or craft making – expanded the students’ horizons on what is worth learning and who to learn from.

While the younger children simply played and enjoyed the nature, the older children were also able to realize the threat to forests and natural ecosystems. Conservation became a direct concern that was everyone’s responsibility; the connection between ecological justice and social justice was becoming apparent.

Children are our hope

With the looming crisis of environmental degradation and the disproportionate socio-economic impact on society, one can despair and give up.

Or one can dare to hope and educate. The answer may be in re-imagining our education – where we have, for too long, educated only the head, and forgotten the heart. Our relationship with our environment is intimate and direct, and all of us need to experience and renew this relationship. And the best place to start is with the children – they are the hope and the reason for the hope.