A Walk to Remember : Young Minds Curious about Butterflies visit Kopri’s Botanical

21st May, 2018

THANE : Armed with their binoculars and mini butterfly encyclopaedia, a group of over a dozen schoolchildren flocked to Kopri’s Dattaji Salvi botanical garden and participated in their very first butterfly walk and small scale composting workshop on Saturday.

As part of this event, which was conducted by city-based botanist Sheetal Pachpande, the group of eight to 14-year-old budding environmentalists not only explored the botanical garden identifying various butterfly species, including the striped tiger and blue tiger butterflies, the male and female mormons and the psyche butterfly amongst others, but also learnt about their life cycle and plant habitat.

“Even though there are green spaces in Thane, there is no one to answer the questions children have about nature. We end up taking them to the mall or enrol them in other activities. This walk was a new experience for my sons and they enjoyed spotting various butterflies, looking through their booklet to identify their names and learning about their life cycle, ” said Jambli Naka’s Aparna Maheshwari, whose children were part of this initiative.

“My elder son has been learning about wet waste turning into manure in school, but this experience made him try it out. He has brought home a bottle composter from the session and is now taking baby steps to making his first batch of manure,” said Maheshwari. Pachpande, said, “The need for spreading awareness about environmental conservation amongst the youth is crucial today as they are the ones who will be able to device solutions for the global mess in the long run. While these things are taught theoretically in schools, not many take students out to so they can feel the intricacies of nature.”

 

Source : timesofindia.indiatimes.com