EDUCATIONAL TRIP TO OOTY BY GRADE 11 STUDENTS

KIKANI VIDHYA MANDIR

Grade: 11

Places Visited:
1) Radio Astronomy Centre
2) Karnataka Siri Horticulture Garden
3)The Tea Factory and Chocolate Factory Dodabetta, Ooty.

The industrial visit of the year 2023 for Grade 11 started from the school campus at 5 am on 13th July. The first destination was Radio Astronomy Centre (RAC) Ooty. RAC is purely a research organization engaged in the research and training of PhD students in Radio Astrophysics. It operates a radio telescope which is an equatorial mounted cylindrical parabolic of size 530 m length and 30 m width.

The students were shown a video on radio telescope and basics of radio astronomy. The students also visited the telescope site and watched it in close proximity. The technical expert explained the working of Ooty radio telescope (ORT). Observations made using this telescope have led to important discoveries and to explain various phenomena occurring in the solar system and in other celestial bodies. They gave detailed explanation to the queries of the students regarding the telescope arrangements, main discoveries, geographical advantages of the location etc.

Next visit was to Karnataka Siri Horticulture Garden. The garden spreads across 38 acres of land, the Karnataka Siri Horticulture Garden is considered as the second largest garden within the hill station that has been primarily divided into various sections named as Rose Garden, Italian Garden, Tea Garden, Maze Garden, Sunken Garden, and Topiary Garden. There are also several lawns along with flowery beds to attract holidaymakers from all walks of life. The flowers and huge trees were the main attraction of the garden, the beauty and the ambience of the garden was refreshing to the students. The memories of the garden were captured on the camera.

Finally destination was the Homewood Tea factory. Perched at an altitude of 1839Mts, the Ooty Tea Factory is spread across nearly an acre; all covered with the emerald green tea plants. Visitors can see the entire processing method right from the freshly plucked green leaves to its packaging at the factory. It also houses the Tea Museum where visitors can learn about the origin of different kinds of tea leaves that are used across the globe along with the history of tea in India and its evolution in the Nilgiris. The Ooty Tea Factory features a small shop where tea is offered to all visitors as complimentary. This hot cup of tea is usually cardamom flavoured that adds to the taste and warms you during the cold weather. The factory is popular for its homemade chocolates too like rum and raisin, fruit and nut, fig and honey, roasted almonds, coffee chocolate, milk chocolate, sugar free varieties among others.

Overall it was a good learning experience focusing on being authentic, interactive, and collaborative to enhance engagement and improve knowledge retention. Besides, it adds value to the learner, encourages social learning, promotes learner self-assessment.