Bhubaneswar: As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage across the country, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has been working to ensure environmental learning does not stop while students remain in home under full or partial lockdown conditions. CSE’s Green Schools Programme (GSP) has stepped up with a unique online environmental survey –Audit@Home.
Ranjita Menon, programme director, environment education unit, CSE said, “With schools closed due to the pandemic, it has become increasingly important to keep environment education going. What better way than to engage children to survey their practices at home and realise the impact of their action on available resources.”
The survey, which concluded recently, provided students with the opportunity to observe, assess and improve the resource consumption patterns in their households with respect to air, energy, food, biodiversity, water, and waste.”
More than 47,000 students across 28 states including Odisha participated in the survey and assessed their every-day environmental practices. From Odisha 1421 students participated in it. The highest participation came from Delhi, with close to 8,000 students submitting the survey from the government as well as private schools.
Open to all students of Grades 5 to 12, the survey was designed in a manner to make students understand various interconnections that play out and add to climate change — for instance, the relationship between waste management and air pollution. Personalised scorecards were shared with each participant with suggestions to transition to greener practices based on their score in the survey.
The survey results pointed towards some promising aspects: 96 per cent of the students who took the survey had energy-efficient lighting in their homes; 67 per cent repurpose or give away food leftovers, and 51 per cent use sustainable modes of transport like walking and cycling for their every-day activities.