TWO INDIAN FINDEL CASTME AWARD WINNING PROJECTS OF 2024: BRIEFS

Project 1

Creating And Linking Forest Garden to Environmental Science Curriculum and Vocational Modules on Skills Of Forestry, Agriculture And Culinary at Middle School Level: Heightening Awareness To Climate Change and Sustainable Development

Project Institution: Som Gurukul, Krukshetra

Project Team: Lalit Kishore, Subhash Chauhan, Pradeep saini

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Abstract

Inspired by visiting friends connected with agricultural science and technology and a teacher-educator who had organised two teacher training workshops in school, a six-week environmental studies (EVS) complementary course  in ‘Forest Gardening’  was developed and implemented with the built-in concepts of sustainability, food security through forest food, and environmental conservation. The recently released curriculum framework under the National Education Policy-2020 in India in tune with UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Agenda, also urges that educational institutions must engage learners in a wide-ranging activities and materials and inspire them to become informed and active global citizens with deep awareness of sustainable development and conservation of environment. Also, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has made it mandatory for the school to carry out a short skill based course out of 30 odd listed areas, of which forestry, agriculture and culinary form the part of the list. The school took the initiative and created an EVS-integrated modular course in which four topics were taught in grade six with a forest garden worked as a lab and adjoining room worked as workshop with four gardening implements, grinding-and-grating kitchen ware to create chutneys as forest food, Three practical and workshop practice integrated STEM areas and topics incorporated the role of forest-foods in sustainability. The innovation was a part of the curriculum development to be executed in the next academic session. The curriculum development process was documented and received favourable reactions towards it both by boys and girls during a lesson study. The module development was a great learning effort for the school which is now ready for  transaction from the up-coming session and its extension to grades seven and eight in the next summer vacation.

PROJECT 2

Initiating Pre-School Kids into Talking Science by Displaying and Demonstrating Sensory Development Activities at Annual Science Exhibition by Senior Students

Project School: Senior Secondary Girls Adarsh Vidya Mandir School, JJC-3, Jaipur, India

Project report author: Lalit Kishore