Education transcends the barriers of just sitting on a desk and rote learning to score a 95% on your exams. Education is about application-based learning, education is about balancing out textbook knowledge with something that allows you to have fun and learn in real-time spaces.
At Nayi Disha, we go beyond by organizing field trips for students to help them learn better at school by having a balance with games and a touch of nature.
Making full use of the resources around us, grades 4 and 5 learnt about the vast beauty of the nature that surrounds them by playing nature games that were educational.
Organised and hosted by Peeyush Sekhsaria at the Aravalli Biodiversity Park in Gurgaon, students of Harijan Colony got a much-needed breather session before they dive into the pressure of exams.
These games were not only educational, exposing them to the different kind of wild animals found in the Aravalli, but also helped them get in touch with their naturalistic qualities. Using stones as playing pieces for a nature-themed ludo snakes and ladder and playing a wild animal theme Bingo game helped students imbibe concepts and knowledge in a fun, application-based manner. But it gets better than that, for they got a healthy dose of sunlight and Vitamin D in the winters of December.
Children are filled with potential, and at Nayi Disha we aim to help them fully utilize and realize their potential from a young age by exposing them to education of all kinds. They bonded better with their peers and shared instances about when they’d seen the animals such as snakes before.
But more than that, they also were also exposed to other children. They not only interacted, but also made friends with students all over Gurgaon. Right from sharing their playing cards with other children to find matching pairs, to dancing like snakes, the children were exposed to a different kind of interaction, one that they would never have been able to get in the 4 walls of a classroom.
Not only that, they also learned to share food that Nayi Disha’s interns got for them with the other students. Students also learned to not litter and were asked to collect all food packets in one place so they could be disposed of in a nature-friendly manner
But how could we take our students to the Aravalli and not take them to the beautiful sunset and sunrise points at the biodiversity park? We gave children an opportunity to read maps posted along the trek path and figure out what directions they should follow to reach the sunrise point. Though it was quite an excursion, you know what they say- the view makes the climb worth it! With all of Gurgaon before their eyes from the hills, the eyes of Nayi Disha’s students glistened with the ‘disha’ of being a more responsible citizen and all the learning they had from the games!
