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Spreading the word around… GSP style
The Gobar Times Green Schools Programme has a very unique trait. It just refuses to remain within boundaries. So, first, it lures its school
partners out of the classrooms to count, weigh, measure, explore, investigate, and analyse. The aim is to audit and assess the schools’
performance as managers of natural resources like water, air, land, energy and waste. The next step is to urge them to scale the walls of the
school compounds, to try out the same method outside. This time with new partners and new auditors. The GSP team met up with some of the veteran GSP wallahs — the schools which have been conducting the programme year after year. They are now spreading the GSP word around. Among their neighbours, their friends and the rest of the village or city they are located in. These ‘Explorers’ are adventurous, innovative, and they believe in getting results! Agents of Change Achyuth Patwardhan School, Varanasi, is helping the Rural Centre, a local village community it has adopted, to set up a waste management system. Kerala Public School, Jamshedpur, is sureveying water consumption pattern in the neighbourhood. Government Senior Secondary School,Boormajra, Punjab, led by Baljeet Kaur is promoting smokeless chulahs in rural households. St. Paul’s School, New Delhi, has convinced eight per cent of its students to come walking or cycling to school. Why did you pick this particular activity? Was it because you felt that this required special attention? Mahadev Swamy Achyuth Patwardhan School Waste disposal is a very critical issue in a place like ours since we are located on the outskirts of the city and the waste is not collected by the municipal corporation. Green Schools Programme has been made a part of the curriculum in our school. Mousumi Roy Kerala Public School Our school is situated in such a place where there is an acute water scarcity despite being near the river Subarnarekha and the Dimna lake. Municipal water supply is irregular . Underground water is the only source, which also dries up during summer. We know that we cannot solve this problem but we can make the people aware of the reuse and recycle practices we have at school. Each student of Classes VIII and IX was asked to survey five houses in her/his neighbourhood to calculate per day per capita water consumption. We were shocked to see that average consumption is as high as 300 to 500 litres per capita/per day. Baljeet Kaur GSS, Punjab As a teacher and a resident of a rural township in Punjab, I know that the extensive use of traditional chulhas (ovens) is the cause of major respiratory problems among rural women and children. The villagers use locally available fuel such as cow-dung-cakes, wood and remains of the agricultural waste. Due to very low efficiency, traditional chulhas emit smoke full of CO2 , CO and sunburn Carbon particles. So my audit team focussed on creating awareness about indoor air pollution and the benefits of smokeless chulhas among the villagers. Sarita Jain St. Paul’s School Our school Principal believes that Energy and Waste are the two areas that require urgent attention in a city. So we concentrated on them. You decided to focus on this particular community (parent, neighbours, rest of the city). Why? Mousumi Roy Kerala Public School We have selected our neighbourhood because we felt that their involvement is vital if we want to make a lasting impact. While working with them we realised that most of them are not aware of the problem. Learning to make small savings at an individu levels, can change the water scenario in our region. Gobar Times invites readers to share and seek information about Green Schools at:- eeu@cseindia.org or write to Environment Education Unit Centre for Science and Environment 41, Tughlakabad Institutional Area, New Delhi-110062
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