The Nature Lab

An outdoor school in Himachal Pradesh shows children how the natural world works.

For the past month,Datyar village in Himachals Solan district has been getting a steady stream of visitors. Among them are children,curious to see how the natural world functions. And Srishti,a Nature School in Datyar,shows them how a queen bee is looked after inside a hive,how insectivorous plants trap their prey and what it feels like to walk through a rainforest.

All students need is a rendezvous with nature to douse the fire of inquisitiveness, says Lt Col Maneet Singh Dawra,who set up the school last month. After he retired from the army,Dawra moved from Mohali to Datyar,where he began growing flowers on a one-acre plot that he got on a five-year lease from farmers. People would drop by to see my flowers and I would take their children on a guided tour. When I saw how thrilled they were to experience what no laboratory could show,I decided to set up a nature school, says Dawra.

To set up the school,Dawra enlisted the help of his educationist friend,Suchita Singh. A science teacher,Singhs previous stints included teaching at Ajmers Mayo College. Even though I was a science teacher,I had not seen many of the plants Lt Col Dawra had grown. For example,the insectivorous plants. Despite all efforts of schools,a gap still exists between the classroom and outdoor activities. The only solution is taking children on meaningful outdoor educational tours, she says.

In the few weeks that it has been around,Srishti has already hosted children from a school in Chandigarh and has bookings for two more schools.

At present,we charge a nominal fee. But by March,when we have our entire infrastructure in place,we plan to charge Rs 200 for every child. But the amount would be much less for institutes where underprivileged children study, says Singh. The school also plans to invite college students who are pursuing botany.

The activities at Srishti are mapped around the NCERT syllabus,and the focus is on biology. It has a nature trail,a rainforest that has orchids sourced from Thailand,ferns,bromeliads and climbers grown in canopy layers to simulate a tropical biome.

The school also has a treetop observatory and an exhibition house which displays rocks and fossils,corals,sea shells and mushroom cultivation beds. Singh says by January-end,they will install cameras inside beehives and in burrows so that children can experience the social behaviour of bees and see how rabbits go about their business in their burrows.

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We will soon set up a greenhouse for medicinal plants and have already ordered a marine water aquarium as well. Besides,a windsock will also be installed to explain experiments related to wind direction, says Singh.

At Srishti,there is no end to learning.