Facilitating learning spaces outside of school
Aastha Maggu, in her article titled “Learning spaces outside schools,” highlights resources that aid educators in guiding students to explore their environment beyond classrooms. These materials focus on nature education, heritage conservation, and engaging students as citizen scientists.
Learning spaces to be found outside the schools are important for children. Interactions in these spaces help them understand their environment and society, and to gain broader exposure. The resources provided here will help educators in facilitating activities that encourage students to explore the world beyond the boundaries of their schools and enhance their learning.
Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage
Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) is dedicated to conserving India’s heritage. One of its primary missions is to raise public awareness about the country’s pluralistic cultural legacy. Various divisions within INTACH have produced and published books, brochures, and other materials.
These illuminate our tangible and intangible heritage. INTACH’S books can be purchased from their offices. Relevant details may be found here.
Adopt a heritage series | Aao virasat apnaein
This series includes three books—’Adopt a Monument,’ ‘Adopt a Tree,’ and ‘Adopt a Craft’. These are intended for teachers, students and enthusiasts interested in learning about India’s built, natural and material heritage.
Language(s): English and Hindi
Tree of life: an activity book on nature education
This is a comprehensive, informative and colorful handbook. It is designed for teacher educators, middle school students, and natural heritage enthusiasts. It includes engaging warm-up exercises, lesser-known facts, informative sections, exercises, and interesting details about trees.
Language(s): English
SeasonWatch
SeasonWatch invites volunteers, including children and adults, to collect information on changes in the flowering, fruiting and leafing patterns of select tree species. Children in participating schools act as ‘citizen scientists’. They collect data on trees with the help of their teacher coordinators. Through SeasonWatch, children can record changing plant life patterns and understand how climate affects their lifecycles. They also gain perspectives about nature conservation.
SeasonWatch has created resources for educators and citizen scientists. These include materials for identifying plants and participating as citizen scientists. In the process, one can learn about trees through games and activities. Their resources can be viewed here.
Language(s): English, Hindi, Malayalam, Marathi and Tamil
Nature Classrooms
Nature Classrooms at Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF), Bengaluru, has been developing learning resources on nature education. These are aligned with existing primary school Environmental Studies (EVS) curricula. The CSO also conducts capacity building workshops for schoolteachers. For more information, please visit Nature Classrooms and NCF India.
Nature learning framework and nature learning pedagogy
The framework and guide serve as a guide for designing age-appropriate nature learning experiences. It begins with experiential activities that make nature immediately accessible to young students and progresses to more abstract, conceptual understanding of ecology, and nature’s interconnectedness.
The dynamic and collaborative pedagogy fosters wonder, love, curiosity, and a connection to nature. It is based on classroom observations, and conversations with ecologists, in-service teachers, and experienced educators. A discussion of this framework and pedagogy can be found here.
Language(s): English
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