The School and Environmental Sanitation (An Analysis)
"Conduits for Youthful Energy: Students as Catalysts of Sustainable Development & Environmental Sanity."
A Research Paper by Dhruv Malhotra, Deputy Director on students and sustainable development
The beauty and genius of a work of art may be reconceived though its first material expression may be destroyed. A vanished harmony may yet again inspire the composer but when the last individual of a race of living beings lives no more, another earth and another heaven must pass before such a one can be again…
Man and Nature were the zenith in our Lord’s art of creation. In the early period of Man’s existence, he lived a very simple life in close relation with Nature. His needs were few and Nature could easily satisfy his modest demands. However, as civilisation developed, Man’s needs grew manifold. He rapidly and recklessly exhausted the earth’s natural resources, upsetting the earth’s ecological balance, which has led to consequences of catastrophic dimensions. Soon it became clear that Man’s demands were increasingly becoming exorbitant. Now as we advance towards the 21st Century, we look forward to a possibly bleak future or perhaps, no future at all. You may call me morbid but the truth hits hard.
At the rate man is depleting the earth’s natural resources without any consideration of replenishment, he may be in the process of puncturing his own lungs. The obliteration of our natural environment is not a historical accident. It is not a mere consequence of Man’s advancement and development, but a direct dénouement of centuries of blatant exploitation and dominance by Man. Man is as much a destroyer as a creator.
But as it goes "Hope springs eternal in the human breast", our race still has hope. Conservation is a global issue and a solution to this grave problem can only be found if all the countries of the world come together, put together their technical expertise and then try to work out an effective solution.
There is no need to dwell upon the graveness of the environmental crisis today. It is a globally recognised fact that environmental conservation is indeed an exigency. If we have to survive, it is mandatory that EACH one of us works towards conservation.
In fact, young people and students have a very important and crucial role to play in saving our dying planet. Schools must integrate the concept of environmental sanitation the regular curriculum, as awareness is the first step, which culminates in ACTION.
It is very important to understand that environmental sanitation cannot be achieved without environmental sanity. Schools, on their part can be instrumental in indoctrinating the latter in the student community. Environmental sanity is a sense of belonging, moral obligation and good conduct towards our environment! I say our environment because, Man has no right to recklessly destroy the planet which he shares with so many other creatures. This is not man's earth only, the earth is an endowment of God over to living creatures and hence he has no business to infringe upon the rights of other living creatures on this planet.
Schools, thus, must aim to initiate a sense of environmental responsibility and consciousness about the grave environmental crisis that the Earth faces today in all their students. This can be achieved through various fora such as the school curriculum, 'Action' programmes, creative programmes (such as debates, declamations, writing, painting etc.), and tangible ACTION such as School Cleanup programmes, tree planting campaigns etc.
This may be achieved through
1.) The School Curriculum: The School curriculum can serve as one of the most effective means to engender environmental responsibility and galvanise and affirm youth movements for environmental sanitation. It is an established fact, that young people have short spans of commitment and interest. When they have to study conservation science as an academic obligation, realisation and knowledge shall, I hope dawn upon them and light the spark to do something for the environment. Integration of the subject of environmental degradation and conservation into the science curriculum is an effective means to achieve the aforementioned goals.
2.)Creative Initiatives: Students and young people have a penchant for expressing themselves through creative conduits such as art, writing, speaking as well as music. This obviously means that the use of such fora can serve as an excellent tool for involving students in campaigns for environmental sanity. Propagation of environmental awareness among the school community can be achieved by the organisation of competitive contests such as debates, declamations, writing, art and music competitions which focus on various areas of the environment such as wildlife conservation, pollution, forests etc. In addition, if these creative contests are organised in conjunction with events such as Earth Day, Wildlife Week, World Environment Day etc, the relevance of these will only be magnified. For example, competitions such as declamations, poster making, skit etc. may be organised during Wildlife Week in October to increase awareness about denuding wildlife population.
3.)'Action' Programmes: It does not need to be stressed that individual tangible action is the most important and potent tool for environmental sanitation. It must be observed that the world is a complex system and every action, however small, can both aggravate and alleviate! Every small action of every individual collectively has a very conspicuous effect on our world’s mechanism and machinery. For example one of the causes for rapid and reckless deforestation is our burgeoning paper demand and consumption (especially by students and youth). This deforestation, in turn has effected, onto the face of our land, catastrophic outcomes. There has been rapid soil erosion and degeneration, decrease in land fertility, ecosystems have been ravaged, food chains destroyed.
The importance of action, responsibility and awareness on part of each individual is of supreme importance to solving not only environmental problems, but also ALL problems that plague our world today. Working at the grassroots is what can really make a difference. That is what young people can effectively achieve. Student campaigns for environmental sanitation, sustainability and sanity that hold promise are:
a.) Nature Clubs or Student Conservation Fraternities: Students can undertake various environmental projects on the grassroots level and indeed be instrumental in effectuating conspicuous change. Young People actuated by determination and commitment to work for the environment can get together into a cohesive organisation or movement. This organisation run by the students themselves may be lead in the correct direction by an adult adviser, preferably a science teacher as he/she would be most well acquainted with the nuances of environmental and conservation science. The organisation can operate on a grassroots level and at the same time be an active part of national and international youth movements. An extremely successful movement on these lines has been the NCI (Nature Clubs of India) Movement headed by the education department of WWF-India. Under the aegis of this movement, student conservation groups are run and led by students in schools under the umbrella of WWF. Generally these groups with around 200 members in ages 12-17 years are engaged in grassroots environmental campaigns which are organised and planned by the central planning education division of WWF-India. This is a very successful initiative and member schools have achieved a lot as regards bringing about environmental sanitation in the school and local community. Projects include waste management, information dissemination, and energy economics.
Besides implementing the campaigns and projects of WWF-India, some Nature Clubs can also plan their own activities and implement them. A creative boost is given by WWF-India by periodically organising creative contests for members of NCI which focus on specific environmental issues (such as art, poetry, essay writing, drama etc.) besides organising heritage trails, field trips etc. Thus, it has been observed that such kind of organised environmental campaigns with adults and youth working in close partnership can be very successful.
b.) Information Dissemination: Knowledge and awareness is the stepping stone to environmental sanity and consequently environmental sanitation. Students are the most effective means to perform this task within as well as out of the school community. This is so because young people generally tend to listen to their peers more often than to the people of the older generation. Information dissemination can be through both creative means such as posters, skits, plays etc. as well as through informal seminars, meetings and talks. Students from higher grades (Class 9-12) can in fact go to talk to students of the junior schools about environmental sanitation and sustain endeavours to kindle the spark of responsibility and awareness in them at the earlier stages of development of the child's personality.
c.) Small Scale Independent projects: Students may undertake environmental projects together which have small budgets, are easy to implement, cost-effective and that can be sustained for long periods of time. For instance, as part of its ongoing efforts to promote recycling and recycled products our school's conservation group set up a stall at our school's fête. Our stall was a great success and attracted many interested spectators and buyers. Our products were sold at a marginal profit. Thus, while generating some funds for forthcoming activities of the organisation, we succeeded in propagating our message to popularise the use of recycled paper and to reduce excessive use of plastic and other non-biodegradable materials. Other such projects could include neighbourhood cleanup programmes, campaigns for boycott of plastic bags, tree planting programmes etc.
d.) Local, national and international liaison for projects: Schools can forge meaningful liaisons and partnerships with like minded educational institutions and organisations both nationally and internationally to substantiate and gain mentoring and support and thus galvanise and affirm their movements. This shall also result in amalgamation of ideas, perspectives and skills. Thus symbiotic relationships can be forged that shall help affirm and galvanise the youth environmental movement as a whole. Hence, while an organisation in India may help to document activities of an organisation in the UK, it may supply it with contacts for fund-raising in return
It does not need to be said again that youth have a very important role to play environmental conservation movements. Man treats the Earth as a commodity, which belongs to him. It is only when man starts treating the earth as an entity, to which he belongs, and is an integral part of, can mass-participation in conservation become a reality. Only awareness, action, kinship, solidarity and a sense of purpose can lay the foundation of conservation in the next millennium.