Activities at Bangalore
“Young Climate Savers” was conducted at Mount Carmel College
12/22/2008
Teachers workshop:
A workshop for teachers on “Young Climate Savers” was conducted at Mount Carmel College for Women in Bangalore. 22 teachers form 18 schools in Bangalore have attended the workshop. It was inaugurated by Mr.Theodore Baskaran, Trustee of WWF India. In his inaugural address he urged the teachers to highlight local impacts of climate change when they deal with children in the schools. He stresses that it helps children to understand the subject better and they are able to connect it to climate change. In the inauguration Principal and the Head of the Department of Mount Carmel College spoke on the importance and urgency of disseminating the information to schools and colleges.
After the inauguration Prof.R.Sukumar, Head of the Department, Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore gave a detailed account on Climate change. His illustrated talk demystified the climate change as a whole. He explained science of climate change with the aid of illustrations. Concepts such as climate and weather, natural and man made causes for climate change, green house emission & its effects; He also highlighted the Indian Institute of Science’s work on climate forecast, modeling to the group. Then the teachers had a discussion with him and got their doubts clarified.
Second session on Adaptation and mitigation to climate change impacts was handled by J.Murali, Regional Coordinator. He spoke about various choices and method available to adapt against climate impacts. Agriculture, coastal zones, mountain regions were some of the topics coved under adaptation.
Third session was on Integrating climate change in the school curriculum. It was handled by
Mr.Prasana Kumar, Programme Officer, Centre for Environment Education, Bangalore. He, in his illustrated talk spoke about various tools and methods by which climate change concepts can be incorporated in to the core curriculum. He suggested indoor and outdoor activities to effectively teach the students on climate change issues. A film show was shown on Do not Unravel, and Beginners Guide to Climate Change. The clips were produced by LIVE EARTH and teachers were very impressed with the flms and requested for a show in their schools. It was promised during schools visits by WWF India project officers.
Then the teachers were asked to submit a tentative schedule for the project officers from WWF to make a visit to their schools to conduct workshop for students. All the teachers were provided with a teachers guide book on Young Climate Savers. Finally teachers were asked to fill in the feedback forms. Many of them expressed that it was a good learning experience. Some felt that more practical activities could have been included. All of them rated the films show as very good.