Activities at Chennai - Field Visit
Field visit at Chennai
10/23/2008
Field Visit:
Teachers from 20 schools were invited for the field visit of Adyar Poonga and Regional Meteorological Centre, Chennai on 23 October 2008. 11 teachers participated in the workshop and an orientation on follow up action was conducted. Mr.Mangalaraj Johnson, Chairman of Tamilnadu State Committee, Mr.J Murali, Regional Coordinator , WWF India and Dr. V.Dakshinamurthy, State Director, Tamil Nadu State Office highlighted the activities to be taken up in the schools in mitigating and adapting to the emerging trends on Climate
Change. The need for interaction within schools and between schools was much emphasized in working towards our vision.
At Adyar Poonga Mr. Cyril Rufus, Environment Educator explained the Adyar Poonga Project, one of the mega project of the state government in restoring the degraded Adyar estuary. An interpretation park is also being developed to show case the eco friendly technologies and living museum of diversified flora which attracts the fauna. An weather monitoring station is set up at the Poonga by Anna University. The teachers were given explained with the different parameters of measurements made in the station. An eco friendly brick making unit from Auroville, compost models, biogas plant models and solar technology were displayed with demonstrations. Exhibition on the wetlands of Chennai, the estuaries of the east coast and artifacts with the seeds of the plants mainly on the coast were displayed.
Interaction with Dr. Ramanan, Director, Dr. Nallusamy and Dr. Balachandran senior scientists from the regional Meteorological department had detailed discussions with the teachers on the different parameters used in observation of the weather
patterns. Practical application of satellites, radars, hot air balloons and early warning systems were explained to the teachers. The teachers were well connected to the students and they can organize visits for their students to the meteorological centre in building up of their capacity to understand the science of climate change, mitigation and adaptation.