It had only been a couple of hours since Ranjitha, a Class 7 student of Government Girls Higher Secondary School, Kathirkamam, had reached the Auroville Botanical Garden on Wednesday. “I used to pluck flowers all the time. I won’t be doing that anymore. We were told that we should not disturb nature,” she says.

‘Change in behaviour’ is an important target in the guidelines for the organisers of the National Nature Camping Programme (NNCP) which Ranjitha and scores of other middle school students like her are attending across the country. The three-day camp is an initiative of the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change and was introduced in 2013.

Among States and Union Territories, Puducherry is the first to host the camp for this year, says T. Sundaramoorthy of the C.P.R Environmental Education Centre Chennai, the nodal agency which is organising the NNCP here, in collaboration with the State Training Centre, Directorate of School Education, Auroville Botanical Garden and Aaranya Forest, Auroville.

In Puducherry, five camps are being held between January 28 and February 7 at the Auroville Botanical Garden and Aaranya Forest. This year’s programme has also grown in strength, with 250 students and 25 teachers from 25 schools in the Puducherry region participating. In last year’s debut programme, 136 students from nine schools had participated in three camps, and drawn a positive response, say the organisers.

The idea is to ‘minimise the classroom and lecture approach and use strategies of field experience, self-discovery, and experiential learning,’ even as awareness of environmental conservation is created among students, according to the guidelines for NNCP.

Among the activities at the Puducherry camps are demonstrations in rainwater harvesting, soil and water conservation, trip to the Ossudu Lake for bird watching, treks, an introduction to sustainable farming practices, mulching, vermicomposting, medicinal plants for home remedies, and identification of plants, insects and butterflies, besides watching films on the environment.

Around 15 experts, including environmentalists and ornithologist S. Ganapathy will guide the students through their activities. The students will also be introduced to the preparation of a biodiversity register and protection of the five landscapes as mentioned in Sangam literature, says Mr. Sundaramoorthy.

“At the camp last year, we had a 14-year-old boy who said he had touched soil for the first time after being here. He was quite moved by the experience,” says P. Bhoopathy of the State Training Centre, Directorate of School Education.

The campers learn lessons in recycling and conservation on the camp site, through practising a ‘net-zero waste’ policy for the duration of their stay. The Auroville Botanical Garden has proven to be an ideal setting for this, with Sathyamoorthy, Education Officer, Auroville Botanical Garden, explaining to the students how natural lighting and open setting had minimised the need for electricity to run fans and lights. “We have been holding regular sessions on the environment, recycling and reuse for students of the surrounding region at the Auroville Botanical Garden. We have seen good examples of behavioural change. I believe hundreds of students have switched to distributing fruits on their birthdays after our sessions where they learnt that chocolate wrappers are not recyclable,” says Mr. Sathyamoorthy.