yet again ... getting lost ... then enjoying self-discovery ...

Nature education in schools: Where do we stand?   Thanks are due to the team at Teacher Plus and the hosts and co-participants of the event for this piece published in August issue of Teacher Plus. At a recent gathering on nature education, participating school teachers raised pertinent questions, some of which I discuss briefly below. A majority of teachers were part of schools that have ‘nature’ higher on the list of values they ascribe to than ‘competition’ and boast of campuses which other ( read regular ) schools can at best dream of. Outdoors.   Most of us agree that the ‘outdoors’ present a far more conducive setting for nature education than the ‘indoors’. However, the ‘outdoors’ also warrant a different and seemingly more difficult set of skills. Walking around and recognizing, touching, smelling, tasting leaves and learning of their usage from people whose lives they are an intricate part of – all the while keeping the students hooked - is diffe...

Exploring Green Patches in Urban Areas. Published in Spectrum – Deccan Herald on 4th July, 2017. Thanks are due to the team at Decccan Herald. The piece on their website here . Unedited text below. I listened to the sound of tyres caressing sand. The music as if changed tunes with the strength I put into my pedaling and thickness of the sand layer. In the silence of a winter afternoon these tunes went in sync with the gentle slopes the cycle manoeuvred and every once in a while, as the tyres hit a stone or a fallen branch, got happily disrupted. As I paused near a bend in the path I listen to undesigned and welcome sounds, of bamboo bending to touch another bamboo and a squirrel moving over leaves resting on ground. I was in the heart of one of our metros and savouring one of our larger University campuses. My exposure to the campus began with walks along the black roads and over the weeks I moved along the brown paths as well. Trees touched these roads and pat...