Children, as part of their education, should also be aware of their immediate environment and resources. Air pollution, heat island effect, Global warming, environmental degradation and Climate Change are the current issues that children are facing in urban environments.
Traditionally the school education has not stressed the importance of educating children to learn from their local environments. Otherwise, there is not much scope for children to learn such things in their schools.
The hands-on education experience by children helps them to learn the challenges of their own environment. The children would be fascinated with the technology of the sensors to monitor their local environment. The children would also disseminate their learning’s and impact the policies through awareness.
The teachers are also proud that the children are able to learn about their environment through the application of digital technologies, otherwise, they would rarely learn in their regular school education.
The air quality in all the major cities in India has deteriorated and which has a drastic impact on the health of the children. Children and adolescents are more vulnerable to climate-related disasters because of their anatomic, cognitive, immunologic, and psychologic differences compared to adults.
The objective is
Through this project, we will recognize children as the earth leaders, who will contribute to awareness on environmental challenges. Children would be made aware of Air pollution; carbon footprint; heat island effect; and other factors contributing to environmental degradation and Climate Change.
Traditionally the school education has not stressed the importance of educating children to learn from their local environments. Otherwise, there is not much scope for children to learn such things in their schools.
The hands-on education experience by children helps them to learn the challenges of their own environment. The children would be fascinated with the technology of the sensors to monitor their local environment. The children would also disseminate their learning’s and impact the policies through awareness.
The teachers are also proud that the children are able to learn about their environment through the application of digital technologies, otherwise, they would rarely learn in their regular school education.
The air quality in all the major cities in India has deteriorated and which has a drastic impact on the health of the children. Children and adolescents are more vulnerable to climate-related disasters because of their anatomic, cognitive, immunologic, and psychologic differences compared to adults.
The objective is
- To educate children on digital literacy and environmental monitoring.
- To teach children on making sensor kits for monitoring air pollution (CO2, PM2.5, PM10), ambient temperature and relative humidity.
- To make children aware of their environment and take and learn about adaptation and mitigation.
- To develop a web portal for sharing weather and air quality information collected from the schools
Through this project, we will recognize children as the earth leaders, who will contribute to awareness on environmental challenges. Children would be made aware of Air pollution; carbon footprint; heat island effect; and other factors contributing to environmental degradation and Climate Change.
The steps for implementation
Identification of the school and with mutual consent implementation of the project.
One teacher in each school, preferably science teacher would be identified for the coordination of this project.
@100 children in each school involved in the project (Age group of children: 12 to 16 years.)
· Taru will do the capacity development of the children in all the aspects as mentioned above.
· Taru will create an online website for sharing weather (temp and R. Humidity) and air quality information collected from the schools.
· Data processing, Analysis, interpretation, graphical display (for the understanding of children), transmitted to the dashboard screens in each school and made available online as open source data.
· Historic data archiving i.e., the data collected from the schools
· Weather prediction display from secondary sources such as IMD.
· Provide online advisories to the students
(Note: This activity would be implemented in phases, the free time available with the children would be utilized for the training. Mostly the children in classes 7, 8 and 9 will be involved. Maximum sessions in every school would be 5 to 10 nos. The lead children would train other children and there would be support of the coordinators from TARU).
Programme Implementation Strategy
Will create awareness through volunteers on the technologies and the subjects – TARU will motivate the IT employees and Environmentalists to volunteer for this project, there would be a pool of minimum of 10 volunteers anytime).
Would recognize the schools and provide certificates to the children who have contributed.
Implementation in schools: This activity would be implemented in phases, the free time available with the children would be utilized for the training. Mostly the children in classes 7, 8 and 9 will be involved. Maximum sessions in every school would be 5 to 10 nos. There would be support of the coordinators from TARU throughout the project duration.
The students would be provided with individual certificates for their participation and contribution in the project with the certificates titled – ‘Earth Leader for Environmental Monitoring’.
The Coordinating Teachers in each school would be recognized and a certificate would be provided for their role in the project as “Earth Leaders Guru for Environment”.
Each participating school would be recognized as the “Center for Earth Leaders.”
This programme would be managed by TARU as the lead agency. It is responsible for the implementation of the work plan - planning, implementation and achieving the desired outputs. The project would be supervised and lead by the senior permanent staff of TARU. There would be support from the TARU team, that is 3 full time personnel staff of TARU.
Dr N. Sai Bhaskar Reddy, Mr Tejas Patel, Mr Piyush Shah, Mr Bhavik Patel would be part of the core team. Two full-time coordinators would be hired by TARU for the implementation of the project with 100 schools.
Dr N. Sai Bhaskar Reddy is a climate change, environment and disaster expert, he is the senior vice-president at TARU. He has conceptualized this project. Having more than 20 years experience in India and Abroad. He is a member of the Gathering for Open Science Hardware (GOSH[i]) and other Open Knowledge groups (OHANDA) since 2009. He has more than 100 innovations to his credit. He has implemented a similar project successfully in Andhra Pradesh and the Telangana States with Govt. Schools. Has also mentored students participating in the Techfest of IIT Bombay.
Similarly, in the City of Hyderabad, Mr. Vikram Chindam http://dotweb.in and Mr. Shiva Nandyala would lead the programme.
