Of Birds, Bees & Trees – Reflections and Insights from Four Passionate, Inspiring Nature Education Practitioners

I had deep dive discussions with four very inspiring educators who have been working in the space of nature education and outreach for many years. Abhisheka Krishnagopal, Yuvan Aves, Poornima Arun and Surendhar Boobalan have had unique journeys, paths that have led them to being passionate, infectious, deeply reflective and effective nature educators.

They come from very different backgrounds, work in different geographical spaces and have been engaging for many years with diverse sets of audiences. I posed questions to the four educators.

I hope you enjoy their wonderful inspirational reflections, personal journeys and the ideas they share with us about nature education – the nuances, challenges, their aha moments, what keeps them motivated and hopeful despite the current state of the world. My conversations with them left me inspired, hopeful, delighted and thankful – feelings that often escape us these days.

As nature education practitioners what is your most memorable experience with children or adults when you have introduced them to nature for the first time?

Abhisheka Krishnagopal: I think most people are aware of nature and do not need an introduction to it. However, I think they end up not thinking too much about it, and this is what we need to change. To actually make people see nature and to make a connection with it in different ways. One memorable experience that stands out for me is when I happened to attend a PTA meeting in a school in a remote part of Karnataka.

I was about to begin a few nature education sessions for the students there. Their parents were mostly farmers working in agricultural lands. When I gave the introductory talk, the parents were there as well. Conversations around topics such as pollination and dispersal became animated and interactive.

These farmers later told me that even though they had been working in these agricultural systems, they often did not make the connection or thread together the important natural phenomenon that allows for systems to function and how interconnected nature and we humans were.

From my experience, to get adults hooked to making comparisons with human social dynamics, roles and behaviour (including gender) with what happens in the natural world is a great way to start. For example, highlighting how most bird species equally share parental duties, how the females of many species actively choose, and reject, males to mate with.

Yuvan Aves: Young students seem to love to be shown the life cycles of various creatures. Every time I take a group of students outdoors, I try to find a water body close by and show them dragonflies and frogs etc. Then we have animated discussions around these observations. I firmly believe that everyone has an intrinsic motivation to learn about and connect with nature. We lose this along the way. I remember one of my students who had no interest in reading or intellectual learning from her textbooks after being exposed to one such nature session around a water body, sat her parents down and excitedly explained in detail about the life cycles of insects and frogs etc.

Poornima Arun: I love to see how the various elements of nature touch children in different ways. The delight when drops of rain fall on their faces, how their eyes shut when they glance towards the sun, when they climb rocks, smell the flowers – these are so spontaneous and genuine – and nature provides that connection and allows them to absorb, reflect and to be enchanted!

One of my students was from a family of goat herders. She had no interest in reading and writing. However, birds, bird names and bird watching fascinated her. Moreover, because of this fascination, she taught herself to write down birds’ names, including writing how the calls of the birds were. For me as a teacher, this was such a special thing to witness. I have seen kids from urban landscapes terrified of clambering over rocks, start developing confidence when they see other kids, adults do it. Therefore, we need to be patient, because things do not happen in silos, changes happen in a continuum.

Surendhar Boobalan: Once when I was taking a class, my students stopped me midsentence and said, “Sir, please stop the class. There is a bird calling and we want to listen to it. What bird call is that sir”?

I was proud and very happy when this happened. Only a few days before that, I had started telling them about birds and taken them for a short walk close to school. They had watched a few birds and we discussed their calls. This particular call was of a Koel bird and the students got very excited.

I used this opportunity to introduce them to other birdcalls as well. I realized how useful it is to use binoculars or a spotting scope when introducing birds to children and adults for the first time. These tools really make people gasp and amazed, and open up very interesting conversations. I currently give them my personal binoculars and spotting scope. However, I wish every school keeps at least binoculars as an important educational tool.

What do you think about the current school EVS curriculum, the opportunities it offers and the gaps therein?

Abhisheka Krishnagopal: I think that since EVS has been made mandatory, it has given nature education an opportunity and space to be a part of school learning. As a community, we often do nature education outside of school timing and spaces. However, India being such a large and diverse country, there are challenges in trying to make the curriculum more locally relevant and appropriate. This needs to be the starting point to make for a more meaningful, deeper connection with nature, especially with young students.

Yuvan Aves: I am unsure about this because the big gap that I see in our nature education interventions and in the current curriculum in highlighting and allowing for an emotional and spiritual connection with nature. All curricula in our country typically also lack a continuum, and the objective for learning unfortunately is only to take tests at the end of the year.

Poornima Arun: Since we are an alternative school, I luckily have the opportunity to look at different textbooks and curricula and trial out what I think will work in our school space. While some have very interesting project ideas, many do not have an emphasis on experiential learning.

Crucially, I also think that textbooks and curricula lack the voices and experiences of teachers. The voices of teachers are completely absent. This is a shame. Getting them to share their experiences and their own ideas will really add value to the textbook approach and content.

Surendhar Boobalan: In Pondicherry, we follow the NCERT books and curriculum in the primary classes. I find the curriculum, approach and content really good and I enjoy teaching EVS to my students with these books. The challenge is that most teachers are not aware. They struggle to transact lessons effectively and the way it is intended.

There is an urgent need to conduct sustained teacher training to use these textbooks and transact the curriculum. Unfortunately, after the fifth standard, we change to the State Board curriculum. Then both students and teachers find it difficult to engage with the subject.

How can teachers and schools with very little or no access to outdoor spaces engage with nature education? What are your recommendations for this?

Abhisheka Krishnagopal: We can think of and design activities that can be conducted indoors. Reminding ourselves that even the most concrete spaces have something around to look and marvel at – insects on walls, small plants growing through pavements. Trees are everywhere around us, and they are great resources with which to start conversations about nature.

To engage with nature, the skills of close and sustained observation are very important. I learnt this in art school. After this, I started using the same technique for my nature education work and it works very well. For example, once the child gets into the habit of observing all that is around, even a small shrub growing at home, or on the way or just outside the school, can be looked at and observed carefully. The rewards from this will be immense.

Yuvan Aves: This can be challenging. Given the various social-economic pressures that students and teachers face, we should still try to identify spaces and possibilities. Young students must be allowed to explore as much as possible. We need to allow and push for this unfettered access in areas in which students feel safe. A wonderful thing about nature education is that it supports and nurtures all kinds of learners. It allows for different learning styles, and it offers a sense of place.

Poornima Arun: I believe that any space, however small, can be a space to engage with nature. For example, even small spaces will have ants, spiders, etc. And there are so many learning opportunities and stories about them that can be shared and discussed in class. We need to empower teachers to feel confident to develop their base knowledge about nature and be mindful of not being too prescriptive. Teachers must themselves experience nature, and the potential of nature learning, before we expect them to teach their students.

I also firmly believe that we should try our best to include the non-teaching staff in schools to join us in our nature learning experiments as well and function as facilitators. I have seen this work so well in my own school. I also think that an element of physical labour – the act of moving and digging soil, composting, climbing trees and rocks, using your hands and legs as much as possible – should be a part of our nature education interventions.

Surendhar Boobalan: Even in a small space in a city, nature education can be carried out. For example, small potted plants can be brought into the classroom or one can ask students to bring a few as well. We can also bring a lot of visual material to the classrooms in the forms of pictures, videos, posters and design nature activities that can be implemented even in small spaces.

What is your favourite go-to tool(s) when you want to introduce and engage people with very little to no knowledge, or who have had no opportunities to engage with nature?

Abhisheka Krishnagopal: The first tools I like to use are subjects that create a sense of wonder and excitement for the audience. There are so many stories in nature that one can borrow from and narrate. For example, I love to narrate the story of the association of the fig tree and the fig wasp and of the amazingly complex lives of social insects.

I try my best to spend some time and explore the areas around me before I start any sessions. It is useful to pepper in personal stories as well, as they can make a nice impact. The most important thing is to try to ensure a sustained engagement with the groups you are interacting with, as much as possible.

Yuvan Aves: This depends on the audience and the group size I am engaging with. If students have been prepped and made to feel confident, I believe in self-directed learning as well. We also need to make sure that our engagement is sustained.

Poornima Arun: Allowing for experiences and conversations that make strong connections with the non-human world is important. Guilt about the state of the world, what we are doing to it, does not work, especially for young students; we need to avoid this. I try my best to look for local and immediate examples around me and the students.

Surendhar Boobalan: I love using the Early Bird flashcards. They are designed so well and make for such a rich and interactive teaching-learning tool. I also wish every school could be provided with binoculars. It is amazing how it can change the perspective of children and adults to the world of birds and bring out a sense of wonderment to see things so clearly through it.

What has been your own journey as a nature educator? Are you optimistic about the small local interventions that we as individuals and organizations are attempting in the midst of a serious loss of nature, and during a time of climate change crisis?

Abhisheka Krishnagopal: I have now started believing that every kind of intervention is important, be it nature walks or wildlife rehabilitation centres. Every effort is important. Nothing is too small or big. It is also useful to occasionally remind oneself about our own strengths, skill sets and the kind of personality we have, and use that understanding to carry out interventions that we are comfortable with.

Yuvan Aves: Due to various personal reasons, I left the formal schooling system for a while. I started teaching instead in a school when I was 16 years old. Some very early experiences and acceptance by my mother of my various quirks and her allowing me to bring home various animals helped me engage with and be amazed with the natural world. I want this for my students. Much of what I read in books and papers also deeply influences me and my teaching of nature. I am also an activist and want to instil the spirit of activism (trying to remove the negative association that the word now unfortunately has) in my students as well.

Poornima Arun: For the last 30 years, I have worked in the area of ecological restoration with the aim to engage with human dignity as well as ecology. In the beginning, through Bombay Natural History Society, I took children who used to live on the streets and from very underprivileged backgrounds for nature walks inside Borivali National Park. For me, it was delightful to witness first-hand how nature provided for internal observation and healing for these children.

I also believe that it is very important for children to use their hands in the soil, dig, collect seeds, see plants grow from seed to sapling and then finally to plant and nurture them. This whole process is important for them to experience and understand. For marginalized children, the process of participating in these meaningful acts can also translate to human dignity and confidence building. Moreover, this translates to dignity of labour for everyone as well.

These are the areas I am deeply interested and entrenched in. Nature education definitely provides these opportunities for teaching learning. I have also recently been part of a collective where we are designing and delivering a climate change curriculum for 9-12th grades. This curriculum can also be used at the university level.

I personally contributed to a chapter on ‘Women and the Environment,’ a topic about which I am passionate. This chapter includes looking at and discussing how patriarchy has been contributing to acts of destruction and debating these ideas within the topic to get students to reflect, engage and debate.

Surendhar Boobalan: It was completely by accident that I was introduced to birds and bird watching about 9 years back. I was amazed by what I saw and had not noticed until then. I am now a passionate bird watcher and nature educator. I use any chance to try and instil this in my own students and colleagues. Yes, I am still very optimistic. I really believe that even small interventions and changes can have impact. Should nature education have measurable outcomes? Should our interventions be monitored and evaluated? If yes, then how? In addition, any other reflections that you would like to share with our readers?

Abhisheka Krishnagopal: Our best feedback will be from the reaction of the groups we are working with. These often cannot be measured by metrics on reports and paper. Feelings and emotions are difficult to measure using conventional evaluation tools. I think there is great value and importance in evaluating the resources we are creating though. We often design and use them thinking and convincing ourselves that they will work. However, this may not be the case.

Even simple, straightforward tools like pre and post questionnaire surveys are good ways to start keeping in mind that each target audience will be very different, and each one will come with their own contexts. We, therefore, should be sensitive to differences in culture and avoid going into a space with our own perspectives. I must add that we need to allow space and time for silence and reflection. We often forget to do this in a rush to conduct activities and reach as many people as possible.

Yuvan Aves: Assessing our outcomes is possible. When and where there is an opportunity to do this, we should plan and design our interventions accordingly. As educators, the most important thing is that our learning objectives should be clear. We should also remember that we need to constantly assess ourselves and always be learners as well.

Poornima Arun: Yes, we need to acknowledge and accept knowledge in all forms and differences in personalities. As a community, we need to come up with creative ways of assessing and evaluating our interventions and teaching tools.

We should also be able to allow for abstract assessments as a way of feedback and reflection. There is too much emphasis on the written word. We need to also design and make available textbooks that have an oral component. There is a large community of people with a rich tradition of oral history. These voices are completely missing.

Surendhar Boobalan: Monitoring and evaluation is very important. Without this, we cannot improve. We could, for example, look for behavioural changes in the students we teach and their interest in nature even outside of school. One scaling system will not fit all though.

We need to trial out a few tools and figure out what will be the best for us in our space and our groups. Working with a small target group in a sustained engagement for long periods of time is much more important and effective than engaging with a large set of people just once or occasionally.