Nature: a living laboratory
Avanish Singh
After I completed my masters in education, I moved to Mumbai for a job. I started working at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. The institute has a lush green campus. I realized that Mumbai was a lot greener than other metropolitan cities I had visited. Mumbai is green to the extent that you cannot ignore it. Regular conversations with a friend, who was already fascinated by them, led to my growing interest in trees. As I walked the streets, I realized that three trees dominate the city – copper pod, rain tree, and gulmohar. These trees fill the city with their flowers, making it aesthetically charming. However, these trees are rarer outside Mumbai. This is perhaps because they are not native to India and they were introduced to the city by the British. Copper pod is from southeast Asia, rain tree from Brazil, and gulmohar from Madagascar. These trees have an ornamental value, grow fast, and give a woody feel to the city.
Trees are not mere vegetation, but living embodiments of the interconnectedness in the environment and ecosystem around us. They are a source of sustenance, providing us with fruits, nuts, and other edible items. They are woven into the fabric of our cultural and spiritual traditions, serving as symbols of life, growth, and connection to the natural world.
Understanding Nature through tree walks
Studying the environment and ecology is an important part of the science curriculum (NCF-SE, 2023). Tree walks aid discussions about seasons, climate change, habitat conservation, and biodiversity. Usually, these topics are taught inside the classroom, where students cannot appreciate the natural environment. It is hard to remember factual information, but easy to remember experiences. Mere transfer of information in the classroom does not translate into experiences that actually help learners construct their own knowledge. Understanding the intricate relationships that trees have with other living organisms can help students develop an understanding of the ecosystems surrounding them. It is therefore immensely beneficial to bring students out into the “real” world when teaching subjects related to the natural environment, so they can better contextualize their learnings and experience the impact of nature.
Tagore in his speech in the United States in 1917, mentions that, “The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence. But we find that this education of sympathy is not only systematically ignored in schools, but it is severely repressed. From our very childhood, habits are formed and knowledge is imparted in such a manner that our life is weaned away from nature and our mind and the world are set in opposition from the beginning of our days. Thus, the greatest of educations for which we came prepared is neglected, and we are made to lose our world to find a bagful of information instead.”
Tagore envisioned a curriculum deeply intertwined with Nature. Classes were held outdoors under trees, allowing students to appreciate the plant and animal worlds and their changes with the seasons. Nature walks and excursions were an established practice at his school in Shantiniketan. Students would observe the life cycles of insects, birds, and plants. Class schedules remained flexible to account for seasons and weathers with a focus on natural phenomena as they occurred. Tagore also created season festivals in school celebrating seasons, e.g., Basanta Utsav meaning the ‘celebration of spring. The core idea was to integrate studies and the natural environment with fluidity between the indoors and outdoors.
We started a tree walk with the idea of taking students and teachers in the institute out from their classrooms and introducing them to different trees, their flowers, fruits, and bark. With time, I started observing and recognizing insects, bugs, moths, birds, and their connections with the trees.
These true bugs I saw in the month of May. They were out for mating before the rainy season began. In the campus they are always under the wild almond tree (Sterculia Foetida) busy drinking the sap from the seeds whichcome out after the pods burst. One of the friends walking with me realizes that he has seen them in the cotton fields drinking sap from the cotton pods. I also noticed that one of the two mating partners is always smaller in size. The difference in their sizes probably indicates the gender of the bugs and usually in nature females are bigger in size.
Walking at different points of time in the campus, we realized that some of the copper pod trees have no set pattern of flowering and that they are flowering at different times in the year. This untimely flowering can be an indicator of climate change. Later, I came across many organizations working to make sense of climate change by observing trees. Trees are a great medium to understand changing seasons and nature walks can be a way of directing students’ attention to these patterns. Seasonwatch is one such citizen science project, whose work can be looked into for exploring seasonality and its connection with trees.
Nature walk and the nature of science
Doing science is a process of inquiry, observation, and investigation, and Nature provides us with a living laboratory to carry out these tasks. Through nature walks, students will get an opportunity to develop essential scientific skills such as:
- Observation: By closely observing the natural world around them, students learn to gather data through their senses, record details, and document their findings accurately.
- Inquiry: The complex relationships in Nature will prompt students to ask questions, formulate hypotheses, and promote curiosity and inquiry.
- Hypothesize: By observing the intricate patterns and cycles in Nature, students can recognize relationships, identify trends, and develop a habit for hypothesizing.
Nature walks are a pedagogic tool that can foster an appreciation for the complexity, beauty, and diversity of the natural world. This appreciation is crucial for nurturing a sense of wonder and respect for the environment, which can inspire students to pursue scientific endeavors and seek solutions to environmental challenges. By engaging with Nature through walks and explorations, students not only gain scientific knowledge, but also develop an understanding of the nature of science itself – a process of continuous inquiry, observation, inferring, and hypothesizing.
References
- NCERT (2023). National Curriculum Framework for School Education. New Delhi: Author.
- Tagore, Rabindranath (1917) Personality. London: Macmillan & Co.
The author is Research Associate, Centre of Excellence in Teacher Education (CETE), TISS, Mumbai. He can be reached at avanish2write@gmail.com and on his social media handles @avanishutsav on X, Instagram, and Linkedin.
