Nature and Environment Education – Some Experiences

Love and respect for nature is a foundation for responsible human behaviour. This view has informed several nature-education programs at the Centre for Environment Education (CEE), based in Ahmedabad in the State of Gujarat. It has perhaps shaped our conception of Environmental Education (EE) and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) as well. From the very beginning in 1984 when CEE was founded, it was recognized that providing opportunities to experience nature is a powerful approach in the repertoire of environmental education. Since nature is all around us, opportunities for nature education abound. The educator’s creativity and challenge lie in how to use these opportunities and structure the learners’ experience in diverse formal and non-formal learning settings.

Here, I share some of the main approaches and programs of nature and environment education at CEE. First, a brief introduction to the organization itself: CEE was founded in 1984 under a scheme for setting up centres of excellence of the then Department of Environment, Forests and Wildlife of the Government of India. The Nehru Foundation for Development, founded by Dr Vikram Sarabhai, was the parent trust that partnered with the Department to foster the creation of CEE as an independent professional organization.

From the very beginning, the necessity of locale-specific EE and partnerships was realized. This led to the creation of projects, programs and offices in different regions, contexts and thrust areas of work. These include formal education, urban and rural programs, experiencing nature, interpretation, education for biodiversity conservation, water management, waste management and circular economy, environment management, climate change, etc. I hope the initiatives shared in this article will provide a flavour of all that we do at CEE.

Formative Influences

Kartikeya Sarabhai, founder Director of CEE, talks about some of the formative influences for CEE from the 1970s and the 1980s. He speaks about the interactions with Romulus Whitaker, Founder, Madras Crocodile Bank who demonstrated the way careful and guided interactions with snakes could change fear into fascination, and to learning about their close connection to humans. It can lead to conversations about traditional knowledge of communities in conservation.

He says, “We set up Sundarvan (https://www.sundarvan.org/) in Ahmedabad as a nature education centre and to house rescued animals including snakes. Rom also visited Sundarvan and it was wonderful to learn from him how an educational experience could be created around snakes”. Kartikeya bhai describes how after Sundarvan opened, “People would queue up because of the interpretation, interaction, and experience that educators offered here”. Sundarvan is also a bat roosting site. You might find an educator who, conducting a bat awareness session, narrates how “Bats fly out in the hundreds to feed every evening … about now”, cued to the moment when the bats start to flutter about and take off for foraging, much to the surprise and delight of the visitors!

Lavkumar Khacchar mentored CEE’s nature camping programs in different ecosystems, including the coast, a forested area and in a mountainous region. Here too, alongside the fun and adventure of a camp and camping activities, the idea was to gain insights into the diversity of ecosystems, how they work and the human relationship with the natural environment.

We have observed that all these experiences shape children’s perspectives and values towards the environment in the long term. Dr Salim Ali visited when the CEE campus was being set up and connected us to bird watching. CEE went on to publish a series of bird books by Lalsinh Bhai Raol in Gujarati. Lalsinh ji’s educational approach was much more around the behaviour of birds and not only on physical features to identify them.

Nature Interpretation Centres

Developing nature interpretation centres is another EE approach that uses the opportunity presented by lakhs of visitors every year at natural heritage sites such as tiger reserves, national parks and wildlife sanctuaries. When the first nature interpretation centre at Kanha National Park was to be developed, a team from CEE met H S Panwar, Park Director, to ideate on the content, exhibits and methods of visitor engagement.

A defining moment was when some visitors, disappointed at not having seen a tiger, said “We did not see anything!” It became clear that the visitor centres would need to build on the anticipation and excitement of seeing a tiger to create an appreciation of what forms a healthy tiger habitat. Nature interpretation centres thus provide visitors with an educational experience of the natural habitat including the key species through interactive exhibits and audio-visual experience.

From Nature Education to Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)

Camps, nature walks and bird watching can evoke wonder and awe regarding the intricacies of nature, with learning in the affective domain, and a connection with nature. An emotional and psychological connection with nature is distinct from a technical understanding of the environment, of say the water cycle or biotic-abiotic interactions. Environmental education must of course move beyond ‘love for nature’, given the challenges of climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss, the inequity of impacts and the need for justice in societal arrangements to deal with environmental crises.

Responding to these imperatives are two new resources developed by CEE and members of the ESD Expert Net: Ten Steps to Systems Thinking using the UNESCO (2017) framework of sustainable development competencies with a focus on systems thinking competence for teachers of secondary and higher level students (as detailed in Education for Sustainable Development Goals. Learning Objectives, p 10), and Handprints for Change: A Teacher Education Handbook, that uses real stories on biodiversity, water, lifestyles and climate change to foster self-reflection and critical thinking on values of one’s own and that of others’ for ‘Ethics-led Action Learning’ for primary and middle school teachers.

Yet, the emotional connection is perhaps even more important now for young people, especially in cities, living with climate change, and an increasing sense of fatalism. What then are the most appropriate approaches in the present day? Younger environment educators (and others) must evolve these. They may build on the emerging EE approaches and what’s worked well so far. They may also perhaps devise radically new approaches with emerging methods of networked learning and action. In my view, values of inclusion, equity, empathy, respect and collaboration will be essential as dayto-day life becomes more uncertain and planetary risks increase.

Even from an instrumental perspective, experiencing nature, learning about interconnections in nature, and how to observe the natural world, will be essential in dealing with the impacts of climate change. My colleague Satish Awate, as part of a study on the livelihoods of wild honey gatherers, recently explained how with an increase in the number of cloudy days, there are significant damages and changes in the flowering cycle of certain plant species.

Honey collectors report a drastic reduction in the number of rock bees (Apis dorsata). The smaller Sateri bees (Apis cerana) locally contribute almost 3/4th of the honey harvest. These bees migrate from the Western Ghat forests to fields in the Deccan Plateau region. With unavailability of adequately large cavities bearing trees in the region, they are now reported to nest in the black cotton soil. With untimely rains, their sub-soil nests flood and the bees perish.

It’s not very clear yet what we can do about climate change impacts on biodiversity. However, observing changing interrelationships, adaptations and survival in other species is essential for us humans to learn how to adapt to and live with the impacts of climate change. And thus, there is perhaps an even greater need to strengthen non-formal approaches of nature education.

Public Debate as ESD

Several years ago, the proposal for the public release of genetically modified edible crop varieties starting with Bt Brinjal provided an unexpected platform for a large outreach on India’s biodiversity wealth, and the debate about genetically modified organisms (GMOs). CEE suggested to the MoEF that the proposal should be publicly deliberated given that farmers, consumers and health professionals, who were some of the main stakeholder groups, had not had any opportunities to contribute on the issue and the debates around it.

Working with experts from academia and the community, CEE prepared information material about the issue, the diversity of brinjal, and the different perspectives on GMOs, and facilitated several public consultations that were chaired by the then Environment Minister. For several weeks, biodiversity was front-page news in India. The proposal for the release of Bt Brinjal was shelved, while the debate served to enhance awareness about biodiversity. Even now, when the topic of GMOs comes up, one might find people remembering the rich wild and cultivated diversity of brinjals in India.

Teacher Support

CEE’s efforts to integrate nature and environment education into school curricula started with the Joy of Learning manuals for teachers, developed for the NCERT, with over 150 activity or lesson plans for EE. Joy of Learning has been translated into several Indian languages and disseminated through various state education departments and other partners. Since then, over the years, the school programs team have developed several thematic activity packages, lesson plans and project-based learning materials disseminated through a range of teacher support programs.

A personal favourite has been the EE Bank design of teacher orientation and support. The EE Bank approach includes a discussion on the need for environmental education, demonstrations of some approaches, access to a database of approaches, activities, lesson plans, and resource materials, and a curated and customized process of helping educators develop their own programs and materials, suited to their own needs.

The EE Bank exemplifies the ‘sari approach’ that Kartikeya bhai often talks about in describing locale-specific EE. India has a beautiful variety of saris, diverse in patterns, weaves and materials. However, the sari is not a stitched and fitted garment. The wearer decides how the sari is draped. Environment education material for educators may emulate the sari, in providing ideas and approaches, but not being overtly specific, leaving it to the educators’ creativity to finally use the EE materials in ways they feel fit for their own teaching-learning situations.

Locale-specific EE Programs

CEE colleagues in different regions have developed nature education and action programs around endangered species like the Ganges River Dolphin, the Asian Elephant and sea turtles. They have especially reached out to schools and communities around the habitats of these species.

With sustained outreach and policy dialogue in Goa, there is greater protection of turtle nesting areas. School nurseries and mini-forests were developed in schools in UP as a part of the Children’s Forest Program demonstrating the importance of nurturing trees from a young age and developing an understanding of the importance of biodiversity and local species.

The importance of restoring urban ecosystems and using these as sites for Environmental Education has been demonstrated by CEE’s own 14-acre forested campus in Ahmedabad and the Lokvan developed in the city. Nature trails, bird watching, botany and microbiology projects are but a few examples of how biodiverse natural spaces can spark learning.

In Maharashtra, over the past few years, CEE and several partners implemented the Maharashtra Gene Bank project that was supported by the state government through the Rajiv Gandhi Science and Technology Commission. This initiative fostered a collaborative process among grassroot workers, social scientists and marginalized communities on knowledge generation, documentation, validation and propagation of successful community-driven practices of biodiversity conservation.

Project themes included on-farm conservation of crop genetic diversity and livestock genetic diversity, conservation and sustainable use of indigenous fish and shellfish diversity in selected fresh water bodies, conservation of grassland and savanna biodiversity, eco-restoration of community forest lands, and ex-situ conservation of marine biodiversity. The component led by CEE was on biodiversity education and participatory management of information pertaining to the conservation efforts.

CEE designed a state specific bio-cultural diversity curriculum through a consultative process and mentored teachers and grassroots educators at the conservation sites towards state-wide testing of the curriculum. To support this process, it undertook development of communication materials, field guides, and educational methods such as habitat-linked, project based learning (H-PBL), local ecosystem mosaic studies, conservation actions, activities to recognize and document the communities’ use of and relationship with bioresources for food, medicine, livelihoods, culture etc. and changes therein.

School-based EE

At the national level, the Paryavaran Mitra initiative of CEE was launched by Dr APJ Abdul Kalam in 2010 to enhance youth leadership and inculcate sustainability competencies. A pedagogy of explorediscover-think-act-share is encouraged. Teachers may support an eco-club or engage the entire school and community. ‘Strengthening Environment Education in the School System’ was an important mainstreaming initiative of the then Ministries of Environment and Forests and of Human Resource Development with support from World Bank around the year 2000.

The project, led by CEE, involved creating a framework for reviewing textbooks and then using it with textbooks of all state education boards and those of NCERT. This stupendous review exercise of over 1,000 textbooks was done by the Bharati Vidyapeeth Institute of Environment Education and Research. Gaps, errors, misrepresentations in text, images, exercises, activities etc. were identified. Following this, an effort was made by about fifteen states to address these gaps and errors. As syllabi and textbooks are periodically revised, new textbooks have replaced those developed under this project.

However, the process of review of textbooks, the deliberations and workshops conducted, and the growing realization of the need for EE were perhaps the most enduring gains from the project. Though ‘protection of the environment’ had already been recognized as a ‘core curricular area’ in the National Education Policy of 1986 (pages 6, 136 and 159), this project helped improve the understanding of how EE may be integrated into textbooks and formal curricula.

A national curriculum framework development process began around 2004, under the chairmanship of Professor Yashpal with several focus groups. The Habitat and Learning Focus Group, chaired by Dr Madhav Gadgil, which included CEE, suggested an infusion of EE into the syllabus, textbooks, and curriculum, recognizing the Honorable Supreme Court’s order emphasizing compulsory EE at all stages. The committee also recommended project-based learning, and the use of the school campus and surroundings as a learning habitat and one in which good environmental management practices could be implemented.

In Maharashtra, it was decided to create a separate subject for environment studies, from the 9th till the 12th standards. I was fortunate to be associated with the board of studies for environment education and contribute to the preparation of textbooks for the state board. A unit on systems thinking was introduced in the 11th standard which is probably a first in India.

However, the inadequacy of teacher orientation programs, the fact that EE remained a ‘graded’ subject which everyone is expected to pass, and the focus on marks obtained in the ‘main’ subjects that drive rote learning, have not been conducive for EE.

While efforts continue for more meaningful EE in the school system, there is great joy and learning from the Planet Discovery Centre, a pre-school initiated by CEE a few years ago, affiliated with the North American Association of Environment Education and Nature Start Alliance. The premise of the school is to use EE approaches to encourage inquiring minds, curiosity and wonder.

The CEE campus, situated on a sandy tekra (hillock or dune) that has had protection and plantation of local species since the 1960s, provides rich opportunities for nature-based learning. As children learn to care for themselves and others, they also begin to learn to care for the world around them.

Experiences and learning about nature in early childhood build a foundation for lifelong environmental literacy and care.

Some Challenges and Ways Forward

The transformation needed in formal education has not quite materialized, despite the efforts of many committed organizations and individuals across the country. NCERT is developing a new curriculum framework, which it is hoped will be more in tune with the challenges the world now faces, and which children will need to deal with.

However, on-ground change will be limited without adequate budgetary support for the basics for education including improvements to school buildings and learning resources, appointment of adequate numbers of teachers, and their capacity building, especially in marginalized and vulnerable areas. A nature camping experience for each child is highly desirable as are activities in and around the school, and day visits or excursions to natural ecosystems.

There is a great need for support for innovation and research in EE and ESD. Over the last three decades, environment and development challenges have rapidly become more severe and complex. As a community of educators, our organizations, networks, and research products should examine how well we are doing and what we could do better.

We also need to advocate for education for sustainable development (ESD). With nature education as an important component, ESD is an integral part of other drivers of change, such as legislation, technology, enforcement, and indeed, public opinion and advocacy campaigns.

Acknowledgement: This essay has been written with inputs from Kartikeya Sarabhai, Madhavi Joshi, Preeti Rawat Kannaujia, Satish Awate and Archana Panicker.