One of the city’s most esteemed schools, the Jasudben ML School (JML), celebrates ‘important’ national and international days with great enthusiasm as it is an opportunity to spread awareness and educate their children about critical causes and issues. In line with this, the school celebrated Earth Day 2022 by organising best-out-of-waste activities. Prior to this day, they also held a career fair and a workshop in collaboration with Drishti, India’s leading mental health organisation for children.

The school’s pre-primary students at Bloomingdales uniquely celebrated Earth Day on April 22nd as the birthday of AWE (known as Air, Water and Earth) – the pre-primary mascot, where the students created placards at home about conservation of earth, water & soil. At school, the students, along with their teachers, went with these placards to higher grades to spread their messages. Along with this, the teachers of the primary section also performed a puppet show while children participated in social awareness activities like creating a compost bin, using waste material to make best out of waste items, making bird feeders etc. Meanwhile, the higher secondary department organised a career fair for its students.

At the same time, primary students celebrated with a no bag day as per the recommendations of the NEP 2020. Instead, every student brought a sapling with their names written on it. Also, a “clean your classrooms” initiative saw students collect trash and clean their classrooms using cleaning cloths. Since students were not allowed to waste their food or the tiffin they brought, there was no lunch wastage on this particular day! Not only that, but students who live nearby took part in a carpool activity while some of them walked or bicycled to school.

Furthermore, Grade 1 students learnt how to make paper bags out of newspapers for the best-out-of-waste activities. Students of Grade 2 engaged in a compost bin activity. For this activity, students had brought a plastic bottle, soil, tissue papers, kitchen waste, spray bottle, piece of cloth, newspapers, amongst other things and learnt to make a compost bin, while also understanding the importance for soil fertility. Grade 3 created a simple bird feeder, and Grade 4 made items using waste materials found in the house like plastic dishes, papers, decoration items, CDs, DVDs etc.

The Student Well-being Centre of JML school, in association with Drishti, also hosted an informative and engaging workshop for the parents of students studying in Grades 1 to 4 on April 21st and the topic for which was ‘Parenting – Pre and Post Pandemic.’

Mrs Damayanti Bhattacharya, the Principal of Jasudben ML School, said, “We believe in developing well-rounded, responsible citizens of the world at Jasudben ML School. It is thus critical to teach children about their responsibility towards the environment. We all know that natural resources are depleting at an alarming rate. We must protect it for future generations. Activities like our Earth Day exercise will aid in building a unique skill set in students. Not only will it increase their awareness of social and environmental issues, but also boost creative, ingenious thinking and make them resourceful adults, and minimise wastage. Plus, career counselling and guidance sessions will assist parents in dealing with their children and helping them grow into responsible adults. This will help parents in understanding the choices open to their children. It will also lead to a greater understanding of various educational areas. We will make every effort to repeat these activities and sessions in the future, taking into account the feedback we get.”