Learning Science
By: Kartikeya V. Sarabhai, Director, Centre for Environment Education
STEP for a better environment
Students Environment Programme (STEP) is an activity of Exnora International and its affiliate Exnora Naturalists’ Club (ENC).
Application of Energy Audit and Cleaner Production (EA) tools in Improving Energy Efficiency for cluster of Small Scale Industries and Small and Medium Enterprises
village schools in Dang, Valsad and Vadodara districts of Gujarat with 100 per cent enrolment, where safe drinking water harvested from rooftop structures is available, where all sanitation units are functional and managed by children and teachers.
The term “Malenadu” refers to the hilly regions of the Western Ghats in Karnataka. The network also reaches the narrow coastal belt, and the eastern fringes of the Ghats. In this region, as in many other parts of the country, home gardens provide access to food (and thus food security), nutrition, and provide an additional source of income.
India is primarily an agrarian society with over 64 per cent of its population dependant directly on agriculture for livelihood. However, the processes of domestication of crops and livestock, and issues related to domesticated bio-diversity are not widely known.
In Raina district, West Bengal, primary school children are acting as major change agents. They have been assigned the role of health soldiers. These health soldiers are asked to report any wrong practices with regard to hygiene behavior (e.g. not cleaning latrine after usage) which they may observe during the day, to the teacher.
Today, as one enters the village of Borban, in the dusty mountainous region of Ahmednagar district in Maharashtra, a board at the entrance to the village proudly welcomes visitors to their ‘Hagandari Mukt Gaon’ – or open defecation-free village. Achieving total sanitation has given the community a sense of pride.
Young Environment Friend is a programme that was initiated in Nagpur by Nisarg Vidnyan (Mandal) Sanstha (NVMS), the project aimed to provide additional environmental education to selected school children to make them sensitive towards the environment, and to create action groups among them to study the issues of “solid waste” and “air pollution” in Nagpur, Maharashtra.
Ms. Shyamala Srivastav of Sardar Patel Vidyalaya(SPV) describes how this school helps develop positive environmental and social attitudes.
CEEGoaState Office in collaboration with the Directorate of Education, Govt. of Goa initiated the Goa Environmental Education Programme in Schools (GEEPS) in 2001 with the objective to sensitize and educate school children in Goa about their environment, and empower them to take positive action to improve the same.
The main objective of the ‘Mowgli Bal Utsav’ is to create a love of nature and generate awareness, primarily among students, about the wise use of natural resources. Helping children learn by experiencing and exploring nature is one of the most effective methodologies of environmental education.
The VGKK campus is situated in a revenue pocket within the Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple Wildlife Sanctuary. When the area was notified a sanctuary in 1974, the Soliga tribal community who lived within the sanctuary and were shifting cultivators, were settled in small settlements called podus
India is a land rich in diversity of life. But its ecological resource base is under threat, with extensive destruction of natural habitats, widespread degradation of agro-ecosystems and a growing burden of air and water pollution. Simultaneously, and most regrettably, India’s knowledge base of uses of biodiversity is also being eroded, with the younger generation becoming increasingly alienated from the natural world. We need to carefully plan on conserving, sustainably using and restoring the biological diversity across the length and breadth of the Indian sub-continent.
A school in the shape of an igloo, students learning pottery, carpentry, and designing bullock carts and actively involved in village yatras – you might find such a picture of a school difficult to believe and conclude that this is a ‘different’ school with no linkage to the mainstream school system. ‘Pachha Shale’ (GreenSchool) initiated by Deccan Development Society, a Hyderabad based organization, is a school very much associated with the school system, but with a difference
The project envisaged involving children at the upper primary and secondary school levels, in clusters across five different biogeographical and cultural domains, in documenting examples of indigenous knowledge in their own families, communities and neighbourhoods. The children were expected to seek information from elders, from individuals with special skills, and study the methods adopted in practicing the skills.
Science Education
Paper presented at the Coordination Meeting of S&T Councils/Departments for Discussing Science and Technology Popularization, 24th and 25th May, 2001, New Delhi.
