Children can be brought closer to Ayurveda and nature by setting up herbal gardens in schools and using them to increase knowledge and awareness of students about Indian medicinal plants.
Two schools of the Hindi heartland of Uttar Pradesh— Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE)-affiliated Government Abhinav Vidyalaya in Dandupur area under Chaka development block of Prayagraj and U.P. Board-recognised Government Inter College at Fursatganj in Amethi district— have embraced use of medicinal garden as an innovative teaching tool.
For this, both the schools utilised the time period when they were closed owing to the Covid outbreak in 2020 and planted as many as 60 herbal plants with medicinal values using their own resources.
These plants included Sweet Neem, Lemon Grass, Ashwagandha, Peppermint, Ajwain, Giloy (Tinospora cordifolia), Gudmar, Guarpatha (aloe vera), Arjuna (Terminalia Arjuna), Shatavari (Asparagus racemosus), Tulsi, Sugarleaf, Neem, Patharchatta (Kalanchoe pinnata) among others.
Principal of Abhinav Vidyalaya, Dandupur, and U.P. state teacher award winner RD Shukla said the knowledge related to medicinal plants of both teachers and students of the school was assessed before planting the garden through a quiz research survey method.
“The aim was to find how much they knew about different medicinal plants and their benefits. We found their knowledge to be quite limited and confined to a few basic plants and trees,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}“The aim was to find how much they knew about different medicinal plants and their benefits. We found their knowledge to be quite limited and confined to a few basic plants and trees,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}After using these plants as a teaching tool, the survey was undertaken again recently which yielded good result. “We found that all the students had started recognising these plants and had even become familiar with their use and benefits. These plants are especially useful in rural areas where many diseases can be treated with their help,” he added.
Sandeep Chaudhary, principal, Government Inter College, Fursatganj, said the garden was also used to explain the interdisciplinary connect between agriculture, social science and environmental protection etc.
This initiative started by the two government schools, principals of which are former colleagues and friends, has also been published in the August 2022 issue of “Unnati International Journal of Multidisciplinary Scientific Research” brought out by SRF Research Foundation, Jabalpur.
“When the school opened after Covid cases declined, all students started taking care of these plants and in doing so learnt a lot about them and their uses. It was a first for me and I thoroughly enjoyed looking after the plants and learning about them,” said Anishka Kesarwani, a class 12 student of Abhinav Vidyalaya, Dandupur.