The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : An environment which has no gap between precept, practice

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Wednesday, Aug 20, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

An environment which has no gap between precept, practice

Meera Srinivasan

CHENNAI: More and more city schools seem to be laying greater emphasis on the practical component of environmental education. Schools heads and teachers say environmental education taught in class has to graduate to practical aspects that are practised in school if the learning has to remain.

For students in lower classes, environmental education continues to be covered as part of Environmental Sciences or EVS. Older students have activities as part of schools’ nature clubs and environment clubs. Different schools seem to have different ways of caring for the environment.

At Sindhi Model School in Kilpauk, for instance, children are encouraged to celebrate their birthdays in an environmental-friendly manner. And the student donating a sapling makes a little announcement in the morning assembly about the plant he or she has brought.

The sapling brought to school is later maintained by the school’s gardener. “I really believe that if we catch them young, the environment will be safer for them when they grow up,” says T. M. J. Padmanabhan, Principal of the school.

Awareness, he says, has to begin in school. “When a child sees a small sapling grow, the child is motivated to plant more saplings at home and in his or her neighbourhood. Our Biology teachers also tell students how a particular plant is unique, about its benefits and so on. This kind of learning stays life-long,” he adds.

B. Sudha, Principal, T. S. T Rajah Girls Matric Higher Secondary School, Tondairpet, concurs. “It is absolutely necessary for schools to practise what they teach in the classrooms,” she says. And this is how her school goes about it. While disposing waste, students source-segregate them and put them into the appropriate dustbin. “Even the smaller children are taught the importance of keeping the classroom clean. They have to make sure bits of paper don’t lie on the ground and that their surroundings are clean all the time,” Ms. Sudha says.

Therefore, even students in the lower classes know how to dispose of plastics and biodegradable wastes separately, she adds. “They take this message back home and insist that elders at home also follow such practices,” she adds.

School teachers say simple group activities and games can be designed to highlight the need for keeping our surroundings clean. Schools that follow environment-friendly practices find it useful not just for their immediate surroundings but also help bring down the expenses incurred by the institution. “Simple things such as switching off fans and lights soon after classes bring down the school’s electricity bill considerably,” says Nanditha Krishna, director, CPR Environmental Education Centre.

The Centre has been conducting environmental audits and is finding more city schools warming up to their green school initiatives. The Centre, which has also been involved in devising modules for the curriculum, at present covers 25 city schools in its audits and proposes to cover 100 more schools in every city this year. And to children, this new tinge of green in their lives has meant quite some excitement. “I have planted a rose sapling in our garden at home and I water it everyday. I want to plant more many trees on our street so that there is enough shade during the summer months,” says B. Gopikumar, a class II student residing in R.A. Puram.

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