“An environment-based education movement–at all levels of education– will help students realize that school isn’t supposed to be a polite form of incarceration, but a portal to the wider world.”– Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder.
Children need to be made aware of the environmental issues they are faced with and equipped to handle them. Learning takes place best in a gentle, conducive environment. Latest researches on children’s efficiency in learning and recalling from memory suggest that a positive emotion is a strong factor that aids in learning. Visthar’s Eco Sanctuary is like a mini sanctorum on the border of a fast expanding urban space. Here in the lap of nature, children can learn, play and explore its mysteries. Spending quality time in nature ensures that children form a positive emotional connect with what is being taught. School children typically spend a day at Visthar absorbed in various eco activities. They arrive in numbers upwards of 50, with a maximum of 125. Children, formed into smaller groups, learn through carefully selected eco activities including mural painting, paper recycling, paper craft, pot painting, organic gardening, Treevellers’ Katte (story telling), yoga and dance.
Sparkling Mindz School, Legacy International School, Little Red Hen School, New Horizon Public School are some of the schools that have availed of this opportunity for their students.
