Jleeb, June 9, 2021: World Environment Day is the biggest annual event promoting positive environment-friendly actions and is celebrated on the 5th of June every year. According to the United Nations, ‘the celebration of this day provides the whole world with an opportunity to broaden the basis for an enlightened opinion and responsible conduct by individuals, enterprises, and communities in preserving and enhancing the environment.’
With the intent of developing a harmonious relationship between children and nature, the Department of Science of Bhavans Indian Education School, organized the World Environment Day on June 6, 2021, by conducting a plethora of virtual activities. The theme chosen for this year was ‘Ecosystem Restoration’.
The tiny tots of IES, took their maiden steps towards environment restoration by germinating seeds, feeding birds, and making bottle coasters. Combining images of human body and elements of nature, the students of grade 1 created human figures using grains, dry and fresh leaves, fruits, vegetables, sticks etc. This activity helped the students understand their relationship with nature and acknowledge it as a part of their identity. The students of grade 2 reached out to their feathered friends by hanging homemade bird feeders made of plastic bottles, egg racks, milk, and juice cartons, orange cup, popsicle sticks, old metal tins, paper plates, empty toilet rolls, and coconut shells. The students of grade 3 came up with an innovative and cost-effective way of incorporating greenery in their house by setting up beautiful hanging gardens made of plastic containers, glass jars, old metal tins etc. and the students of grade 4 recreated beautiful terrariums.
The students of grades 7 and 8 attended a session by Dr. Chindambaram Sabarathinam, a research scientist from Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research. The guest speaker, Dr. Chindambaram Sabarathinam, addressed the students with an excellent presentation on the recent threats to environment. He started the session by explaining the demands on world’s water resources and then he continued with different types of water pollution. He explained how microplastics could affect different ecosystems. He also expounded the aftereffects of greenhouse gases in the environment. He concluded that there should be absolute harmony maintained among the environment, social beings and technological development. He also stated that students should adopt different measures like recycling, reducing fuel consumption, using water carefully etc. At the end of the session, students asked questions based on the topics discussed during the presentation, and all the questions were answered by the resource person. Apart from the presentation, a short video of the students performing a few activities pertaining to the Environment Day was played in the virtual classes.
The Vice Principal of Senior Wing, Ms. Anselma Tessy Judeson, in her closing thoughts expressed that an alarm call has been raised by nature and it was indeed a call to give back to Mother Earth all the resources that we have been over exploiting over the past years. She also reminded the students that they could repay nature by growing more trees, keeping their cities clean , changing their diets and by cleaning up rivers and coasts. The Principal of IES, Mr. T. Premkumar, presented a virtual certificate to the resource person as a token of appreciation and thanked him for spending his valuable time to create awareness among the students regarding the conservation of the environment. The session came to an end with a vote of thanks proposed by Karen Ann Bobby of 7F. The observance of this year’s World Environment Day, in every sense, motivated the young Bhavanites to save, love, and respect Mother Nature.