Paryavaran Mitra Puraskar 2013

GujaratNomination for Best Teacher

Vyas Jayeshbhai Madhusudan, PatanSubject Teacher: English,Mathematics,Science,Environment

Classes: primary, secondary , and higher secondary classes.

Action Project Involvement:

He is ECO club co-ordinator of his district and started 250 ECO clubs in primary, secondary , and higher secondary schools.

He has organized various assay writing, drawing competition on environment among many schools in Patan district.

Kinnari. M. Pandya,Majiraj Girls High School, Bhavnagar

Subject Teacher: English

Classes: 6-10

Action Project Involvement: To aware students of reduce waste, Healthy food habits among students.

Integration of EE in the subject: During lecture in class-9, sub – English, chap-8, getting answered from students them selves, of what is waste and how to reduce it. An Involvement of students are there.

Roles played by stakeholders:

Teacher’s: Teachers of science and technology and social science are trying to integrate EE in their syllabus.

Principal: To Principal: appreciate students.

Non teaching staff of the school- To make clean ground Non teaching staff of the school reduces to use of plastic bags.

Students-Students helped teacher in conducting activity,10 Students of class 9-G cleans lobby after recess everyday.

Parents-Giving valuable information and material to do activity.

Benefit of the Project Based Learning approach: “ Energy has been save, Petrol has been save so that air pollution reduces, Use of plastic bags has been reduces so that land pollution reduces.

Manisha Singh Kachchhava, Rachana School, Ahmedabad

Subject Teacher: Social Science

Classes: Primary Classes (1-8)

Action Project Involvement: Healthy food habits among students.

Integration of EE in the subject: Using problem solving as a technique from in the above project to find out roots of symptoms of unhealthy eating among students.

Activities that worked best in explaining the concepts of EE: Health club in school, snake and ladder game on healthy eating habits, survey and analysis, charts and presentation, expert talk by Dr Pooja (Civil Hospital), Sessions for parents, school policy for healthy lunches, monitoring of school lunch.

Roles played by stakeholders:

Teacher’s: Social Sciences and science teachers guided students to benefits of healthy eating during classes.Principal: Implementing school policy of bringing ‘healthy food’

Involvement of non teaching staff of the school- No involvement of non-teaching staff of school. Students-students helped teacher in conducting activity (debate, drawing,slogan compts. in various classes-organizing games, checking lunch boxes, doing survey, analyzing data.

Parents-Giving valuable information and material to do activity.

Benefit of the Project Based Learning approach: “The project helped students learn problem solving, decision making, working together to solve a common problem. At the same time developing communication skill, sensitivity and responsibility towards environment and social problems.”

My role in the initiative- “The project was part of CEE’s Green Teacher Diploma and is now a continuous project.

Fund mobilization: Funds provided by school for wellbeing of students.

My learnings from the project: “As an educator, I gained knowledge about nutritional value of foods. The project boosted my confidence in how to tackle problems in a planned manner. The relationship with my students improved. My interpersonal relations with other teachers improved. As an individual, I was awakened to bad habits of students”.

Learning outcomes achieved:

Students- respect for healthy food habits, inculcated habits of not eating junk foods, developed communication skills and critical thinking skills.

School-Major problem of students eating junk food at recess was taken care of, school policy of bringing healthy food, students are good ambassadors for the school, Healthy students!

Paryavaran Mitra Puraskar 2013

GujaratNomination for Best Student

Sahil Bohra, Rachna School, AhmedabadName: SAHIL BOHRA

Team members names: Swastishree Bajpai, Ansh Ajmera, Kahan Shah, Isheen Agarwal

School name: Rachana school, Ahmedabad

Project Title: LET”S INVEST IN SANITATION

Short summary of project: To teach the students about proper sanitation and hygiene. To teach them about the importance of sanitation. To bring about behavioural change in the students. To make our school free of litter & garbage.

Sources of information: Internet, interactions with stakeholders like Municipal commissioners, local resource centers, slum dwellers, non-teaching staff etc.

Linkages to studies in school this year:

Garbage in, garbage out, class-6,science text book-main topics were:-

Dealing with garbage, Composting and vermicomposting, Think and then throw garbage, Recycling of paper, Plastics – boon or a curse

Environmental and social impacts of the project:

There is a behavioral change in the students. The problem of sanitation and pollution has been solved in the school. Sensitivity towards the environment has developed in the students and other people.

As we students are doing this action project, our families and communities are realizing the impact of their action on the environment and are becoming responsible citizens with good habits and values.

Global issues the project relates to:

“The global issue that our project relates to is about sanitation and hygiene. It relates the global issue because as we spread garbage and don’t maintain cleanliness in our environment .This issue is affecting many people not only in one or two countries but lot more than that.

Things we learnt that we will use in other life situations:

I will not make my environment dirty. I will first begin everything with myself before teaching it to anyone. I will maintain personal hygiene. I will be happy with what I have. I shall never discriminate people according to their castes. I will understand other people’s problems.

Anamitra Bhar, Anandalaya Education Society

Student leader’s name: Anamitra Bhar

School name: Anandalaya Education Society

Project Title: “ Reduce and make use of Waste”

Short summary of project: To identify the optimum solution for managing domestic waste. Reduce the wastage of natural resources. Segregation of biodegradable and non-biodegradable wastes. Keeping two Dustbins. One for wastes that can be recycled and one for wastes that cannot be recycled. Spreading awareness on this issue

Environmental and social impacts of the project:“In search of an effective waste disposal and reuse of domestic kitchen waste, I embarked upon the idea of composting in housing society and residential campus. As towards the completion of my action plan I completely didn’t achieve what I had planned but I could achieve 80% of it. First I did my project in a small scale in the nearby garden of my house. When the people of our society saw the potato plants which I had shown and they got the idea of ‘composting’. There are many kitchen gardens where the residents grow vegetables and plant trees. They invited me to show how to make compost so that they too can use it in their kitchen garden. With the help of my project I am able spread the idea of composting and organic farming in our campus. Also this shows the way how an effective domestic waste can be managed.”

Kimaya Prasad Suryarao, The Aditya Birla Public School, Kesrol

Student leader’s Name: Kimaya Prasad Suryarao

Team members names (if any): Asmi Mhalgi, Ayushi Choudhary,Yashwanth,Dipansh, Moksha, Avantika

School Name:The Aditya Birla Public School, Kesrol

Project Title: Bird Diversity in ABPS ,Kesrol

Short summary of project:Our school is surrounded by large tracts of land which are being used for Agricultural work and Construction. Our project is aimed at documenting the birds found in our campus, making attempts to sustain it and to create awareness among the students regarding the issue. During the course of the project we got to know the bird species found in our campus. Then we documented the problems we are facing due to which the bird population has come down so in order to spread awareness we conducted many activities to protect birds.

Activities: Documenting bird species around the school, spreading messages via slogan writing competition, story narration, feature book narration,games

Linkages to studies in school this year:“We had 2 chapters which were linked to our project. We had a chapter in biology: Conservation of plants and animals. The second chapter was in Hindi: Parindowala .In this chapter we learnt that for livelihood people are ready to kill birds or capture and sell them.

Environmental and social impacts of the project:“The success of this project does not depend upon volumes of data. If we are able to maintain the bird diversity for a significantly longer period of time i.e. until nature takes its own course, we feel that we have succeeded.”

Global issues the project relates to:“As we know that human life is linked to other forms of life, we need to share and support ourselves. We do not feel that our acts are justified because of the harm we are causing to the environment. Our concern springs from our belief that we should stop dominating and act in a manner to show that we are truly human. Thus the decrease in birds is leading to adverse effects of human life. So by our humble attempts we will try to maintain and develop the bird diversity. As today all over the world, there are some birds that we have not seen. The rest our endangered and some which are common are getting neglected. This is a life cycle which is interlinked to each other.”

Naman Parikh, Navrachana School, Sama, Vadodara

Student leader’s Name: Naman Parikh

School name: Navrachana School

Project Title: “PAUDHANDEHI”

Short summary of project:

To inculcate habits amongst children for gifting herbal plants to spread the usage, To mobilize & create short campaigns for promoting herbal plants amongst children, To facilitate children learn benefits of herbal plants, To get hands on experience by growing herbal plants in the school garden, To develop sense of ownership amongst children for nourishing herbal plants, To develop empathy amongst students by giving away herbal saplings to the underprivileged.

Linkages to studies in school this year:“it had linkages to a subject in our school known as General Science. The chapter name is known as ‘Plant World’. We were taught regarding herbal plants, their structures, venation, roots, health benefits, etc.

Environmental and social impacts of the project:“My project could certainly create major sustainable environmental & social impact. Due to my ongoing interaction with Arpan School, children with multiple disabilities are now able to find themselves in ecological system. They have also tried to understand importance of preserving nature. The project also influenced nearly 100+ students who in turn influenced their families for nourishing herbal plants. Many of them are now taking regular care of their herbal plants. Major change is creation of medicinal plant bank in my school. This is now permanent and it is likely to lasts for several years, unless some major changes in school occur. I am also now spreading this project to other schools through various NGOs and my target is to make at least 250 to 500 more plant buddies from 25 different schools. I have already received invitation from Municipal Corporation School of Vadodara Municipal Seva Sadan.”

CEE WestCentre for Environment Education, Nehru Foundation for Development, Thaltej Tekra, Ahmedabad 380 054, GujaratTel: 079-26858002-8009, Fax: 079-26858010E-mail: ceewest@ceeindia.org