“Children are like buds in a garden and should be carefully and lovingly nurtured, as they are the future of the nation and the citizens of tomorrow.”
-Jawaharlal Nehru
Inspired by this quote, Mumbai Earth5R team was driven to organize an EarthTalk for environmental education for children at Municipal School at Chandivali, Powai, Mumbai. Having already conducted such talks at various educational institutions (Podar International School, Mithibai College, NMIMS are a few to names, our environmentalists decided to conduct it at a Municipal School. The team included Sagar Kulkarni, Kaksha Mahudkar, Vandita Morarkar, Manish Jha , Ishan Sharma and Akshita Shah from Earth5R Mumbai.
Realizing that the students of municipal schools would benefit from environmental education, Earth5R team selected Durga Devi Sharma Municipal School at Chandivali – Powai for the Earth Talk on 28 August 2015. There were 50 children from 1st and 4th standard. Children are bound to share what they learn, with the people they meet, their family members and friends.
Keeping in mind the need of these children, the topics covered included cleanliness, recycling, water conservation, plantation and personal hygiene. Starting with standard 1 children, after a fun introduction session, animated flash-cards were shown to the students explaining the concepts in an entertaining manner.
Children were enthusiastic and attentive throughout. The session ended with paper-boat making activity and as taught to them, they threw the waste paper in the dustbin. Well, children have never been good at listening to their elders but they have never failed to imitate them.
Having had such a fun session for the standard 1 , the standard 4 students were more than welcoming to the team. Students were made to engage in games like passing the parcel, quizzes, etc which were based on the Earth Talk concepts. They were lightly quizzed about their ambitions and how it would help the world. Many interesting answers were gathered. They were taught to recycle used papers to make paper bags as another activity and chocolates were distributed at the end.
The team returned with an optimistic hope of imbibed learning in the students for a better and cleaner tomorrow.
-Written by Akshita Shah. Photo credits Ishan Sharma. Edited by Pragya Lodha
