Prakriti Ki Prayogshala - Hindi Book

Title: Prakriti Ki Prayogshala (in Hindi).
Authors: Nikhil Mohan Patnayak and Pushpshri Patnayak.
Publishers: Vigyan Prasar, A-50, Institutional Area, Sector-62, Noida 201 307.
Year: 2008.
119 pp.
Price: Rs 85.


This book is a Hindi translation of the original book Exploring Nature in English. It has been translated and edited by B. K. Tyagi, Anurag Sharma and Navneet K. Gupta. This little treatise supplements the school education about nature, by training students in an informal setting.


The book contains several interesting and exciting easy-to-do experiments. These experiments explicitly explain the various complicated concepts and phenomena of nature to students and inspire them to love and explore nature and its constituents. For middle-school students and their teachers, it is a resource book of simple activities aimed at learning nature in a play-way manner.

Nature is all fascinating and is calling us to be a part of it by coming out of the concrete jungles. In fact, we are an integral part of nature and our survival is dependent on it. The easy-to-do experiments in the book are able to inculcate scientific reasoning, thinking and scientific temper among the students while boosting their creativity and imagination through participation, direct observations and drawing inferences. The book is a motivational tool that can transform the young minds as nature lovers through exploration, inquiry and learning about nature by do-yourself activities; thus nurturing the future conservators of nature.

The authors have succeeded in explaining the various complicated natural things and phenomena in a simple and lucid language which an average student can understand. The illustrations by Brij Kishore Jain are good; the simple line drawings make the experiments easier for the students.

The most important fact about this book, which I liked, is that no expensive and sophisticated materials and apparatus are required to conduct such experiments. Rather, it uses materials which are inexpensive and easily available at home and in the neighbourhood. This makes the scientific pursuit and experiments affordable to the poor students. As the book is well-written in simple Hindi, it is best suited to the students of Hindi-medium education or anyone who is comfortable with Hindi.

The experiments described in the book can be done by students individually or in a group, with or without the help of a teacher. These do not need any sophisticated laboratory or apparatus, but an inquisitive and creative mind to make the best out of what is easily available at home.

The book is certainly a treasure of knowledge about nature for the young minds and is worth reading for every middle or high-school student.