Children have an innate curiosity about nature, but this is often lost while growing up. How can we nurture this curiosity and encourage children to explore the natural world? Birds may provide the answer, since they are colourful, accessible, culturally familiar and provide an excellent entry point into larger aspects of nature and environment. Through birds, a sustained interest and engagement with nature could be inculcated, which would produce the next generation of champions for the natural world.
This talk will introduce an effort called Early Bird – an initiative of Nature Conservation Foundation – which aims to produce innovative materials to facilitate children’s introduction to birding. Early Bird works in collaboration with partner organizations around the country, and also hopes to develop a network of volunteer bird “educators” who can have a cascading effect and spread the birding big far and wide!
