Thicket Tales, a Bengaluru-based organisation that believes in using the wonders of the natural world to bridge the learning gap, will present Nature’s Palette for Curriculum Delight, the final outcome of the first module of its flagship programme, Learn Around Nature (LAN).
The exhibition, which will be held at Ashoka Shishu Vihara, Shankarapura, on Saturday, showcases what the school’s students have learned over the past three months as part of this program.
According to SaiDevi Sanjeeviraja, Thicket Tales’ founder, LAN is a 10-month curriculum-integrated program for government schools offering experiential nature-based learning for these children. “If learning is difficult for children from low-income groups, they don’t enjoy it,” she believes. However, if one offers immersive experiences that children can relate to, “it has an exponential effect,” says SaiDevi.
From the LAN programme | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRAGEMENT
In keeping with this idea, LAN “integrates storytelling, arts, STEM activities, and interactive games to breathe life into 60% of the state syllabus’s science and social science concepts,” as the Thicket Tales website points out. Over the course of the year, students are taken through three modules, Geography, Biodiversity, and Human Connection, with each lasting around three months. While the first two months are spent visualising the curriculum, the last focuses on using this data to build something, says SaiDevi, adding that this upcoming exhibition is the result of their first Geography module. “The entire curriculum was hyper-localised,” she says, adding that concepts like sunlight, air, pollution, water and wind were explained within their city and school setting.
The final application part of this module, the Live Project, is essentially an attempt to redesign the school sustainably, applying all that they have learnt in the past two months. While the sixth-standard students came up with a pop-up book, the seventh and eighth-standard ones have developed a model of their school, considering what they think is best for it and what is practically feasible. “We want them to know that learning could be impactful and joyous. That it shouldn’t have to be difficult,” says SaiDevi, who firmly believes that children are no less than adults. “I am always fascinated by how, if you throw a problem at them, they come up with good solutions, which is on par with any adult,” she says.
Nature’s Palette for Curriculum Delight will be held at Ashoka Shishu Vihara, Shankarapura, on Saturday, February 24th, between 10.30 a.m. and 12.30 p.m. Admission is free for all.
