The Chipko Movement
Tree Hugging, Food Justice, Taking Action
About this Lesson
This lesson invites students to connect through food, nature, and community activism by exploring the Chipko Movement, a powerful environmental resistance effort. In the 1970s, in the Himalayan foothills, women embraced trees to protect their forests, water sources, and food systems from destruction, ultimately winning a decade-long logging ban. We discover how women have been hugging trees in India for over 300 years to prevent damage to the ecological systems that sustain human communities. Students will explore food systems, environmental stewardship, and the legacy of grassroots activism. Students are empowered to see themselves as part of a long history of people who have fought to protect their communities and the land they depended on.
Lesson Materials
Chipko Movement - Detailed Lesson Plan
Chipko Movement - Teacher Workbook
Chipko Movement - Student Workbook
Lesson HIGHLIGHTS
1 | Discover the origins of South Asian tree-hugging movements through art, from over 300 years ago to the 1970s.
2 | Learn about how women in the Himalayas protected their food systems in the 1970s by hugging trees to fight commercial logging!
3 | Do a scavenger hunt of your favorite foods and learn about the forces controlling what you eat
4 | Investigate how your favorite fruits travel from distant places to your hands. Meet the people who touch those fruits, and the history of American fruit corporations that have made life hard for those people.
5 | Make your own protest poster and learn about the United Farmworkers in Movement in California through Dolores Huerta.
6 | Plant your own bean seed and track how your seed grows alongside one new habit you want to build to support the earth or your community.