Thursday 20 November 2014

Kitchen garden and Nature Club Greens the School



The article is about a yearlong effort of our school in bringing awareness about organic farming among children. Being one of the senior teachers in Life Science department, I was directly involved in the Nature Club activities since last five years. My earliest experiences with the Nature Club were exciting and the response of the students too was overwhelming. They thought Nature Club was all about outings but the aim and vision of Nature Club was much broader! That was when I was deputed to a workshop aimed at building capacity of Life Science teachers and promoting Nature Club activities in schools at the Regional Museum of Natural History conducted by Mysore Amateur Naturalists. The fun filled workshop was in fact more serious in its approach and suggested a lot of activities to be carried back home. The timely association with NGOs rejuvenated my confidence in teaching profession.

I would like to share this experience of the task of keeping our School Nature club active and a hub of learning and recreation. Over the past three years my association with Hasiru Hejje team has enabled me to shape up our annual Science expos’ in a thought provoking way. Choosing a common theme for the event and pooling in all possible view points of other subject teachers were done on highest priority. A number of projects were thought of in each subject. The students were brainstormed about the topics and given a choice to select a study project based on their interest.
In the year 2012 the School chose to name the expo as ‘Vignanamayam’ and I worked a few extra nights to intensify Natural Science themes in the fair. Keeping Man and Nature as the central theme, Man Animal Conflict, Land use Pattern Change, Depletion of Lakes, History of Green Revolution, Natural Farming and Water Foot Print were chosen as sub themes. With about five projects per theme we were able to dominate the entire expo. With the involvement of the right resource persons and agencies we were able to bring in every day issues and present it in a convincing way. With a main concern to make the exhibition eventful and appealing to younger class and visiting parents, model making was given all the push. Clay, cotton rags, papier-mâché and card board were the raw materials. Plastics and thermocol were consciously not brought onto the work table.

 Clay models of snake to help identification, leopard animal conflict, do’s and don’ts on seeing a wild elephant in the city limits, statistics about unnatural elephant deaths, effects of using chemicals in agriculture, collection of native paddy varieties, organic soil and organic pest control were all the highlights among the sixty projects  under a dozen sub themes. The parents and the public comprehended the efforts and whole heartedly appreciated the efforts of the Nature Club and it’s in charge. Of course the support from the management was beyond any honor to an enthusiastic teacher like me.

The students and the school took a long time to come out of the reminiscence of the success. The event had a slow and percolating effect upon the behavior of the students. Some students who were shy had opened up a bit, those who were less attentive to lessons showed better involvement in the class room; the rouge and bully types became easy to handle even by the non-class teachers and so on.
The following year the management realized the real outcome of the science expo and was ready to dedicate more time and money. To me it was not just a matter of joy but added responsibility. We decided to work upon the theme statement of the year’s World Environment Day. We named it ‘Aharamrutham’ and started the work much in advance.  Every aspect of food was considered- the agro-climatic, socio cultural, and techno-economic dimensions. History of Agriculture, Collection of native varieties of Ragi and minor millets, Concepts of Permaculture, Poster Exhibition, Farm Visits,  field to market, food preservation and adulteration, nutrients in food, food, food processing, food recycling, food economics were all envisaged in the fair. Once the students picked up their topics attempts were made to give them huge amount of inputs and prompted with many possible ways of expressing their views. Many field visits were arranged for them to gather information in their respective pursuits. A team went about meeting vegetable growers around Mysore to learn about their economic endeavors while another team visited the Defense Food Research Laboratory to know the science behind making Food for a Space traveller. Another team visited a pioneering NGO working to promote Organic Farming at Marthalli, in the foot hills of Male Mahadeshwara hills. The visit to ANISHA- helped our students pick up ideas and concepts of Permaculture, Growing vegetables on raised bed platforms, Local varieties of Seeds and their preservation, natural pesticides and a number of time-tested practices blending with modern Sciences. Their research plots and the seed bank won the imagination of every student.

 This year’s exhibition was in fact more powerful than the previous year. The students stood proudly in front of their projects. A model Farm of Anisha and an enormous collection of native seeds and vegetables attracted one and all. The collection of 56 local varieties of Ragi including those from Orissa and Nepal were on display.
 As though to complete the square a “Desi food mela”, a Ragi Milk parlor and a Film festival on issues related to Food and Agriculture were also arranged during the exhibition. There was a wide coverage in the press and the School management was impressed by the efforts and intentions of the Science club. The half a dozen native cows reared by the school and the already green mind set of the Principal Br. Virijamritha Chaitanya now   started thinking real big.
She took a policy decision to utilize every possible space in the school to develop a kitchen garden. She set afoot at trying out vertical gardening that is becoming popular in the west. Her home work landed at a Japanese concept of ‘Curtain Gardening’. The combined effort of the students and the teachers over a couple of weekends enabled to prepare soil with a copious proportion of compost to be lifted up to all the four floors in polythene sacs. Seeds of vegetable and creeper were sown in the bags, early June. By the teacher’s day on September 5th, miracles had happened.
The school space had not only got greener, cooler and dust free but had become aesthetically appealing to the students. We could develop a green walk through about a kilometer long where such space simply didn’t exist. The students had an opportunity to observe and appreciate the growth of plants and the insect visitors’ right next to their class rooms. While some students pinch to taste the buds of certain vegetables they had no taste for while others police the produce with authority!
Now the school Nature Club, the management and the two NGOs are all feeling content.   They have all teamed up to keep up their good intended efforts on and ticking. While ANISHA working in the forest fringes was striving to drive their organic concepts into schools and younger generation, our school in the city was looking for ideas. The mediation of ‘Hasiru Hejje’ which works with both the distant agencies is trying to help the ideas materialize for them.
This year the partnerships are indicating much better yields for the Nature Club. Our Principal has made personal visit to ANISHA and met up with Rajan and Valli who run the center. She speaks of all the things she saw there first hand. Permaculture, low input agriculture and sustainable lifestyles are the catch words in the campus vocabulary.  Now the responsibility of the Nature Club is the fourth floor to experiment with the concept of cultivating in raised bed platforms with permaculture techniques. All the sacks in along the corridors have now been connected with drip irrigation and needs very little care.
Never did I think with Biology teaching, I would learn so many things in life. It is probably the time spent with children outside the classroom and the text books; time spent in meeting people and knowing things to tell my students. During the parents meeting, some are taking the stairs to the upper floors off to appreciate the green curtain. Some even make enquiry for vegetable seeds.  ‘Yes the bug is catching up!’ Exclaims our Principal ‘the school is getting greener and it must radiate across’.

Geetha H
PGT in Biology
Amrita Vidyalayam, Mysore

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