This announcement bar can be used to inform visitors of something important!
Forest Learners is a growing circle of people learning from the wild, where forest means not just wooded jungles, but all living landscapes like rivers, lakes, forest villages, and the community of people rooted in these places.
A community-led nature education program in Gobuk, Arunachal Pradesh, reconnecting children with forests through play, storytelling, and local women as teachers.
A locally-led nature education program tied to eco-restoration efforts by the community's Biodiversity Management Committee.
A networking initiative bringing together 34+ educators across Northeast India for collaborative workshops and capacity building.
Educational sessions integrating citizen science tools like iNaturalist and eBird into the Green Hub Fellows curriculum.
A locally-led nature education program in Changlangshu village of Mon district, Nagaland, that is tied with eco-restoration efforts by the local Biodiversity Management Committee (BMC). This is a collaborative project between the Changlangshu BMC, Canopy Collective and The Green Hub Project that aims to support local leaders and educators in inculcating indigenous values and local ways of learning for children and youth.
These efforts were extensively documented in the form of a booklet called ‘Rooted in Place: Insights on ground-up nature education from Changlangshu, Nagaland.’ It is a toolkit for nature educators and grassroots practitioners on place-based approaches to nature education, and includes simple worksheets for program-building and activity design.
On 21st September 2024, the Biodiversity Management Committee (BMC) of Changlangshu village in Mon district, Nagaland, organised the launch of the Minleang Eco-Club, a youth-led initiative for eco-restoration and conservation in the area. The Minleang Eco-Club serves as the new youth wing of the Changlangshu BMC and currently has 23 members—one from each khel in the village—all of whom are high school students from two local schools.
A community film screening and a photography and art exhibition were organised during the traditional Aoleang festival. Three wildlife and cultural films based in Changlangshu and the Northeast were shown as part of the event.
The Changlangshu BMC, led by wildlife conservationist and filmmaker Wanmai Konyak, has been working to restore community forests around the village. They currently maintain a 5-hectare restoration site, surrounded by community reserves, where they run a nursery and plant native saplings throughout the year.
Since 2023, the BMC has been collaborating with the Green Hub Project and Canopy Collective to develop a place-based nature education program aimed at involving local youth and children in eco-restoration efforts. As part of this initiative, young nature educators from the village, H. Eangba and Angki Konyak, have been conducting nature education and engagement sessions with children, grounded in local ecology and culture.
Canopy of Learning began as a space for on-ground educators in Northeast India to be able to share ideas, collaborate, network, and build capacity. In 2023, 34 educators working in different parts of the Northeast got together under the Canopy of learning to attend a workshop on Decoding Nature Education facilitated by Dr. Pranav Trivedi and Sangeeta Trivedi at Pakke Tiger Reserve, Arunachal Pradesh. This was organised by the Nature Conservation Foundation in association with Canopy Collective and Green Hub. We hope to co-facilitate interactive sessions and discussions between nature educators in Northeast India to incubate ideas, share resources and inspiration, co-document efforts, and co-produce shareable material.
In 2024, Dr. Pranav and Sangeeta facilitated another workshop with the same cohort and some new educators on Nature Education Activity Design, organised by Nature Conservation Foundation in association with Canopy Collective and Green Hub. This workshop helped the educators design place-based activities and games that can be used during their nature education programs. Some of these activities were tested with students from Seijosa, Arunachal Pradesh, during the workshop. We are now in the process of bringing out an activity manual with a detailed description of the activities designed during the workshop. These activities will also be tested by the educators who designed them in their respective communities before finalising the manual. These are not only relevant to educators in the Northeast but could be customised to use in other parts of the country as well.
The Canopy of Learning network aims to foster collaborations and strengthen links among these educators, many of whom have already kept in touch after the workshop and visited each other’s sites. In 2025, we plan to expand this network and strengthen these pre-existing networks through another residential workshop.
Dr. Aparajita Datta, Dr. Pranav Trivedi & Sangeetha Trivedi, Karishma Pradhan, Saniya Chaplod, Dr. Nandini Velho
Nayantara Siruguri
As part of the broader Nature Education work at Green Hub, we plan to include nature education sessions and activities in the curriculum, starting with the 9th batch of Green Hub Fellows. These sessions will introduce and encourage the Fellows to contribute to citizen science projects and use identification apps such as iNaturalist, eBird, SeasonWatch, and Merlin. These tools will help them systematically record and document biodiversity, not just for their films, but also for scientific research.
The Green Hub community project on iNaturalist is a collection of all biodiversity uploaded by people from Green Hub and Canopy Collective across India. Some of the previous Green Hub Fellows are part of our Canopy of Learning network and are carrying out nature education work in different regions of the Northeast.
Saniya Chaplod and the Green Hub team
