Exemplar School

St. Kabir School Navrangpura, Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Has been recognized by the jury process as ‘Exemplar School’ at the National Level

St. Kabir School Navrangpura worked on all the five themes; Water and sanitation, Waste management, Biodiversity and greening, Energy and Culture & Heritage.

The school is keen on providing a vibrant forum for quality education to students, with a scientific temper, adaptive to the changing needs of time, to ensure all-round development of the child and to expose him/her to a wide spectrum of co-curricular learning which is essential to make the child confident who is ready to step out in today's challenging world.

The school accumulates the best values from the Indian tradition and other world cultures. Besides inculcating respect for the country the school also enhances exposure to the world heritage engendering in them a spirit of openness, acceptance and tolerance. And by doing so, engaged in doing action projects on environment education with the school children and is keen to take newer initiatives to take the leanings to the next level. The project based teaching learning methodology of the school has benefitted the students to engage with joy and enthusiasm in the process.

The school provides a platform to enhance the environmental learning among the students and work towards sustainable environment. The principal and teachers are well informed about the various steps to be taken to make the school an environment friendly campus along with the students getting benefitted out in their curriculum. The syllabus is linked and the action projects. Activities done are framed to meet the dual objective of curriculum delivery and the student learning out of it with joy and understanding.

The Projects and Inspiration: The school identified the issues to be dealt with in all the themes to work on, discussed and finalized a working plan with the teachers and came up with activities and action projects to carry out throughout the year in the school. A systematized planning for the year wise events along with discussions and follow up are always there in every engagement of the school with environment education projects with students. Following the above, this year the students explored the energy consumption in their school campus. They suggested ways to conserve electricity and reduce the wastage or unnecessary use. The project was a good

learning for the students as the students learnt the soft skills of interviewing and effective communication. They learnt about team work, time management, overcoming conflicts, perfection in our work and sharing of resources. Academically, the students learnt about energy conservation and sustainable use.

The school students undertook projects on water conservation in school and around nearby areas. They spread awareness among public about the importance of water conservation through a rally and street-play and uploaded videos on social networking sites (You-tube, Facebook). The students had also done preliminary research on how to save fuel using different means of transport, traffic congestion on roads and the amount of pollution cars produce, amount of fuel they consume.

Group Discussion on the topic “Nonconventional & conventional sources of energy”, Preparation of scrap book on “Alternate sources of energy”, activity in form of a mathematical sum based on non-renewable fuels such as CNG and petrol were conducted. They were asked to compare their prices by forming linear equations. They were asked to calculate energy consumed by their household for three months. Compare the bills and find ways to reduce the usage. A discussion on the major cause of Climate Change & our over dependence and irresponsible utilization of our natural energy sources was done. Various steps to optimize electricity consumption and reduce its impact on the environment were discussed. The students prepared an energy audit of the school, engaged in “Dialogue writing” based on the topic “Conversation between two friends on using solar energy in everyday life as an alternative source to conserve energy”.

Through the biodiversity and greening theme projects, students understood about the natural vegetation and its importance in maintaining the balance in nature. In science the students had a better understanding about various food chains, trees grown, their flowering season and habitat of various birds and animals. In Math the students understood the Venn diagram by taking examples of endangered birds. The students understood that an environment rich in biological diversity offers the broadest array of options for sustainable economic activity. They understood the interdependence of physical and biological environment for maintaining an ecological balance in nature.

In the culture and heritage theme, the students learned about India’s rich culture with so many places of historical importance.

The Impact and Learnings:

The action projects undertaken by the school were centered towards the students learning and making them conscious about the environment and issues around.

Students learned to collect data, compile & interpret the same for a systematic approach to tackle the issue. They also learned to co-operate with each other. Leadership qualities were developed in them. They learned to sensitize this issue on larger scale to the community around.

The action projects carried out by the student’s are not only helping them to create a better understanding of the environmental issue in school but are also focused with the objective to bring about a positive change in the attitude of local community around towards positive environment actions. The success of the effort lies in the locals getting involved in the action project to take cleanliness and also to hear the students talking on the importance of cleanliness, hygiene and sanitation.

The school, teachers and students are keen on taking environment education to the next level by creating an opportunity to all to get involved in the activities/ action projects needed to address the issues at school as well as community level. They are also keen on systematic approach to address the issues and to build better understanding of the same in the students and enhance scientific temperament. All the efforts of the school are well in line with the syllabus to be taught and also pertaining to contemporary situations at hand so that the students should build in them a rationale for dealing with issues around, acting with responsibility, applying the learning in a variety of other similar contexts and above all building a better individual and personality. The school also thinks on sustainability and taking the initiative to the next level by making it sustainable.