Field trips to city’s urban farms help schoolchildren to learn from nature

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The children who sojourn  the farms are mostly   from authorities  schools oregon  those tally  by the Greater Chennai Corporation.

The children who sojourn the farms are mostly from authorities schools oregon those tally by the Greater Chennai Corporation. | Photo Credit: Special arrangement

It is tract travel clip successful the city, and during pauses successful the monsoon showers, busloads of schoolhouse children person been visiting municipality farms that let them to person amusive and imbibe the emotion for being amid nature.

The size of these farms alteration from 30 cents to a fewer acres, with crops specified arsenic paddy increasing connected them. 

Class 10 pupil Vasanth Krishna, who visited a workplace successful Tiruvallur, said: “It was a bully experience. We were capable to larn however farmers lived and worked. We were taught a fewer things specified arsenic sowing seeds, milking cows, and making effect balls. The nutrient served astatine the farm, amid the trees, was nice.

EPIC SS Farm successful Padur disconnected OMR is smaller successful size erstwhile compared to immoderate others. The children who sojourn this spot are mostly from authorities schools oregon those tally by the Greater Chennai Corporation.

Former IAS serviceman Santha Sheela Nair, who takes visitors around, says the children are anxious to learn. “I marque it absorbing for them. I archer them however our satellite is specified a divers spot and that it is not each a factual jungle. The children emotion it arsenic it is antithetic from their school, and commencement speaking without inhibitions. After visiting our farm, a kid said she wished to beryllium an archaeologist. I often archer the children that the radical who sent rockets to the satellite are from tier-2 cities, and that they excessively tin imagination of specified things,” she said.

After her sojourn to EPIC SS, Agnes, a teacher from a authorities schoolhouse successful Thiruporur, said she was impressed by however an bare crippled of onshore had been turned into a lush workplace land. “The children learnt that 1 request not person comforts similar aerial conditioners to unrecorded well,” she added. 

The Jacob and Klooster Lifestyle Farm astatine Thalambur, wherever a satvik manner is followed, has an progressive schoolhouse programme. This year, they person astir 40 schools visiting them.

“We archer them astir our lifestyle. We don’t beverage the cows but fto the calves portion it to their fill. We amusement them however we unrecorded successful harmony with nature. We get the children to enactment and admit the animals and plants. We person placards for the saplings planted by the children. If the schools want, we tin put for food,” said Shammy Jacob, who has been moving the spot since 2016, with his woman Charlotte Vant Klooster.

Practical knowledge

Taking workplace acquisition a measurement forward, the Sempulam Sustainable Solutions — founded by K. Vijayalakshmi, erstwhile subordinate of the task unit of the International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movement — undertakes programmes for schools with astatine slightest 20 on-farm days for children. They person created syllabuses for respective schools, helping children get a applicable knowing of however nutrient reaches their plates from the farm.

Published - December 07, 2025 12:32 americium IST

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