Rishi Valley School

Deepti Sastry works for CSE India - an environmental knowledge-based pressure group. 

In 1992, she was a 14 year-old at the Rishi Valley School near Bangalore. And was being taught by an inspirational biology teacher, Ms.Geeta Iyer.

What was unusual about your biology lessons?

The school had a garden and Miss Iyer would regularly get us outside and working:

...we used to get our hands really dirty.

We went out with shovels to build contour bunds to trap water for irrigation.  And we planted saplings to secure the soil.

Did the students enjoy the practical work?

Mostly, we loved it. Though I hated Parthenium weeding. It's an alien plant species in India - we had to pull it up by the roots to protect the indigenous plants. There were snakes and scorpions in the area so it was quite scary.

What about classroom activities?

We kept a lot of charts for rainfall and water table levels. Miss Iyer's philosophy was:

...measure the problem, recognise the problem.

We also had regular activity weeks. During one, we made organic fertiliser [out of Neem seeds] to spray on the garden.

What was the most important thing that you learnt from Miss Iyer?

To understand and respect nature and my environment. And now I know how everything is connected and important.

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