The India Climate Observatory

Commentary, action and research on climate and development in India

Education & Outreach

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Aegis:

In India, the vast majority of people are unaware of the issues relating to global warming and climate change. This population includes people from many walks of life from the affluent to the poor, from students to professionals, from teachers to home- makers, etc.

Regardless of our socio-economic status, everyone faces the consequences of climate change. Our contributions to climate change, however, vary. We must all become aware and take necessary action at individual and group levels to mitigate our contribution to climate change and to be able to adapt to it.

Our initiative, Democratizing Climate Change Discourses, reaches out to many different kinds of audiences with information on climate change and what we can all do about it. Climate change education is an integral part of our effort.

Climate change education:

CSM has been conducting multimedia, interactive, and inter-disciplinary workshops for students of classes 7 and above thus far. Soon, we will be offering workshops for others – teachers, employees of companies, civil service personnel, civic groups, home-makers, etc. The content, format, and duration of the workshops are flexible to suit the audiences.

At present, workshops are provided in English and Kannada. Soon, we will be offering them in Bengali.

For educational institutions, we are currently working towards gradual inclusion of climate change into the syllabus of various educational curricula.

For students:

Student workshops are graded into three levels: One Star, Two Star, and Three Star.

One Star: climate and weather, climate change, interdisciplinary understanding of the topic, responding to climate change. For all audiences with suitable modifications.
Two Star: Case studies in climate change. Best suited for students in 9th standard and above (including college)
Three Star: Option A – a selected climate change-related research project; Option B – history and development of the climate change issue.

In all cases, we will help schools assess students for formal academic credit also, if desired.

Thus far, we have provided workshops at:
• Army Public School, Bangalore [English] – ongoing.
• Mallya Aditi International School, Bangalore [English]
• Shantinikethana English Medium School, Bangalore [English]
• Netaji High School, Bangalore [Kannada]
• Audugodi Government High School for students of 8th and 9th standards [Kannada]

In Kolkata we have offered workshops at these schools, in partnership with Dep. of Environment and Dep. of Forests, Gov. of West Bengal:
• Patha Bhavan
• Loreto Day School – Sealdah
• St. Joseph and Mary School
• St. James’ School
• Chowringhee High School

More workshops are forthcoming for students, teachers, and others.

If you would like to organize climate change education workshops for
• a formal group (schools, students, civic organization, etc.)
• an informal group (friends, family, etc.)
• or would like to join one of our in-house workshops

please contact cced@csmworld.org This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for details.

Student feedback – Kolkata

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STUDENT FEEDBACK – KOLKATA WORKSHOPS

 

 

 

“Graphical representation of the reducing of ice caps or increase in temperature was really interesting… This workshop should be shown all over the world, if possible.”

— (Anonymous student, Patha Bhaban)

 

 

 

“It was very interesting. Sir was very friendly and so problem of not understanding did not occur. I would love to attend the next level workshops also, if possible”

— (Rupsa Sengupta, Patha Bhaban)

 

 

 

 

 

“The workshop was very interesting. So much better than ordinary school coaching.”

(Anonymous student, Patha Bhaban)

 

 

“It was a very good workshop that I have attended in my life, because the Sir was very friendly with us and he always makes us laugh and I would thank to them who have organized this workshop from the bottom of my heart.”

— (Md. Atif Azad, Chowringhee High School)

 

 

 

 

“The interaction and the manner it was taught to us. Sir, your teaching was awesome! We had a great time and fun and learned a lot of things. Hope v meet again!!”

— (Tazamul Sarfaraz, Chowringhee High School)

 

 

“It was fun and did not make go to sleep.”
(Anushka Mitra, Loreto Day School Sealdah)
“The … video which was showing methane burning / the flames coming out from the ice. The competition which we had between our groups. The workshop is already excellent what else we must tell to make the workshop better.”

— (Afreen Khatoon, Loreto Day School Sealdah)

 

 

 

 

“I learnt what I can do to prevent Earth from getting hotter. It was fun.”
— (Divij Agarwal, St. James’ School)

 

 

“A great way to increase your knowledge about climate change. A very good way to prepare the mind of children for the next level and I would like to attend it again.”

— (Kanishka Agrawal, St. James’ School)

 

 

 

 

“The workshop was awesome and it should come again in our school with some other topics.”

— (Sanjukta Chatterjee, St. Joseph & Mary School)

 

 

“Practical experiments can be tried. The whole school should attend the workshop so that they can also be aware of this. This workshop has influenced me a lot and I’ve decided to check some of my activities that affects (sic) the environment.”

— (Pratyesha Bhattacharya, Patha Bhaban)

 

 

 

 

“The workshop made me a lot more aware about my environment than before. The activities which were performed… were really exciting. We should provide a bit more time for the activities.”

— (Mayurakshi Mukherjee, Patha Bhaban)

 

 

“I learned that I can do something to help reduce climate change. [I] hope this workshop always be continued and the conversation was free and there was no restrictions.”

— (Priya Jaiswal, Chowringhee High School)

 

 

 

 

“Several quizes and prizes should be there in a workshop.”

— (Md. Sabir, Chowringhee High School)

 

 

“The ability to make us understand the topics. The interconnection of the subjects as shown. The workshop should be given a little more time to have more interaction and fun.”

— (Anonymous student, , Chowringhee High School)

 

 

 

 

“The [movie] clips were very well to make us understand about the global warming. The topic was really very interesting. By these things we can really work hard in our future to reduce global warming.”

— (Midhat Samar, Loreto Day School Sealdah)

 

 

“It was interesting especially the part where the methane gas catches fire. The uncle who conducted the quiz explained us very well. If there was a movie or more videos with better sound, it would be great”

— (Anonymous student, St. James’ School)

 

 

 

 

“The slides made were fantastic and very interesting.”

— (Anonymous student, St. James’ School)

 

 

“It taught us the red alerts to the nature. The maps.”

— (Anonymous student, St. Joseph & Mary School)

 

 

 

 

CSM begins workshops in Kolkata

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CSM begins climate change education work in West Bengal.

In partnership with the Ministry of Environment, and Department of Forests, Government of West Bengal, CSM has started a project to bring climate change (CC) education to schools in West Bengal. We began with a series of engagements in Kolkata in the first week of May 2010.

We conducted interactive workshops at Patha Bhavan, Loreto Day School – Sealdah, St. Joseph and Mary School, St. James’ School, and Chowringhee High School (all in Kolkata) for students in standards 8-10.

The response to the workshops was overwhelmingly positive.

Each interactive multi-media workshop took the students through a recap of climate concepts and terms, concepts of anthropogenic (human-caused) and natural global warming, climate change, and the impacts of these.  Video clips, animations, and slides were used to illustrate the topics throughout.

Students were engaged in a dialogue to not only learn about climate change, but also to understand how everything they study at school is interconnected; and how they all connect to climate change.

Students were given informative posters on climate change, bookmarks with “Five things to remember” about climate change and related topics, and certificates of participation.

Wherever possible, we asked the groups of students to confer and tell the whole group what each person would do to help reduce their impact on the climate and what their school could realistically do to reduce impact on the climate. Most students went so far as to suggest how they would actually help the schools achieve this.

They also competed in climate change word-finding competitions, winning a rather unusual prize.

Through cheerful interaction, fun engagement, and smattering of competition, students added to whatever they knew about climate change.

We also held a briefing for school Principals and teachers at Aranya Bhaban on “From subjects to disciplines — climate change education as a tool”.  Fifteen schools were represented at this briefing. Four of these schools signed up for student workshops to be held in the next quarter.

This is just the beginning of an ongoing and longer-term climate change education engagement among CSM, the schools, Ministry of Environment, and Department of Forests, Government of West Bengal.

If you would like to organize workshops at your school, for students and/or teachers, please get in touch with us at cced@csmworld.org



Proudly announcing partnerships for the program

Principals’ and teachers’ briefing in progress.
 

Group discussions underway at principals’/teachers’ briefing.

 

Participants at the principals’/teachers’ briefing.

 

Students at Chowringhee High School, deep in discussions.

Chowringhee High School student painting part of a concept
(“habitat loss”) on the workshop presenter.

 

Chowringhee High School student presenting the outcomes
of his group’s discussions.

Participants at Loreto school painting climate
change information on each other

Participant at Loreto – Sealdah analyzes a venn diagram brilliantly!
(They have not yet been taught set theory!)

Participant at Patha Bhavan school emphatically makes
a point that emerged from her group’s discussions.
 

Participants at the St. James’ School climate change workshop.

Participants at St. Joseph & Mary hold up their
“Five Things to Remember” bookmarks.

Student feedback – Bangalore

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STUDENT FEEDBACK – BANGALORE WORKSHOPS

      
“What I really liked about this class was, I learned about the difference between weather and climate, that temperatures are rising, and what I learned about the environment is how the heat is being produced. My wish is that he (the teacher) should come again sometime.”
— Vignesh, 9th standard,Netaji Bose High School, Hombegowdanagara, Bangalore 		    “We learned where methane comes from, and about Earth, carbon dioxide, methane … we are increasing the heat … we did not know so much. Thank you for teaching all these things. You taught us with a lot of jokes and comedy. I request you to come again to our school and teach us about these things.”
— Tejasvini, 9th standard,Netaji Bose High School, Hombegowdanagara, Bangalore
       
“What I liked most about this class was you took a topic and described it well and you also showed us the related topics.”
— Shivalakshmi, 9th standard,Netaji Bose High School, Hombegowdanagara, Bangalore		     “Our friends must be told about this. Likewise, we should tell our parents not to burn plastics and tyres and create carbon dioxide, not to cut trees … everyone should be taught this. This is my suggestion.”
— Priya, 9th standard,Netaji Bose High School, Hombegowdanagara, Bangalore
       
“I liked the interaction between the students and the professor, and the team work.”
— Priyanka K, 9th standard, Shanthinikethana English School, Bangalore.		     “I liked the idea of working in a group, the slides, the videos, and the explanation.”
— Chirag Jain, 10th standard, Shanthinikethana English School, Bangalore.
       
“Creating awareness about rapid change in climate … I liked it because no other workshop tells us about climate and area surrounding us. There was a mixing of all subjects which were inter-related to each other and we didn’t know.”
— Chetan Prakash, 10th standard, Shanthinikethana English School, Bangalore. 		    “The topic was interesting and the way of explanation was very good. It was fun, interesting.”
— Hemanth S., 9th standard, Shanthinikethana English School, Bangalore.
       
“Conduct the workshop in parks so that even people going by will learn about (climate change).”
— Akilesh Patel, 10th standard, Shanthinikethana English School, Bangalore.		     “I liked the cooperative learning with friends and teacher teaching as a friend.”
— Sanath V. Bharadwaj, 10th standard, Shanthinikethana English School, Bangalore.
       
“I liked the concept of sharing thoughts between students and teacher.”
— Mohan C.K., 10th standard, Shanthinikethana English School, Bangalore. 		    “I liked Sir’s interactive behaviour and teaching skills which is amazing and easy to understand. Totally a fabulous workshop which I will try to remember forever.”
— Sagar V., 10th standard, Shanthinikethana English School, Bangalore.
       
“I liked the programme’s concern about the individual’s importance in safeguarding the climate of our Mother planet.”
— Janardhan, J.S., 10th standard, Shanthinikethana English School, Bangalore.		     “It told us about the climate that is changing due to us… how we can help in reducing the global warming.”
— Sanjay Rawat, 8th standard, Army Public School, Bangalore
       
“It was in an interesting way, not like the usual lectures we get. It was fun and influenced me.”
— Anahat Kaur, 8th standard, Army Public School, Bangalore		    

“It was not restricted to only listening to someone else; we all had chance to voice our ideas and opinions. I learned new ways of tackling global warming which I had never thought of.”
— Christina Mathew, 8th standard, Army Public School, Bangalore

       

Students’ feedback at Kannada language workshops