Knowledge Outside the Classroom – An experience at Gir National Forest

Students often have to live, imagine work and even enjoy in the classroom for most of the time during the 5 years of their tenure during Architectural education. The initial years till 2nd year are for acquiring skills and knowledge and the senior years are for performing and acquiring advanced skills required for an Architectural Profession. The Authors through this paper state that students also require outside the class knowledge in culture, wildlife, village life, forest, conservation, wildlife and cuisine. Hence the Authors who themselves have keen interest Wildlife and Photography took the initiative to impart the knowledge outside the regular classroom and make nature as a classroom. Hence it was decided to take some students from the Fourth year to Gir National forest amongst one of the most famous, ecologically sensitive and rich zones in the country, most noted for being the only habitat for Asiatic Lion. It is the Authors who state that such kind of initiatives and knowledge imparting has been ubiquitous in contemporary architectural education where global efforts are made on conservation of the nature as well as cultural heritage. The Authors state through this paper that if Students are given hands-on experience and approach they learn more and the learning is for life time. Architecture can also be taught through experience and not only by conventional jury and exam method. This paper is a collection of various experiences between a teacher and student, in which the teacher was the nature and context.