Delhi school gets acknowledged by CNN’s Call to Earth Day 2022 for environmental activities  

In a bid to raise environmental awareness, Apeejay School International (ASI), South Delhi, partnered with international news channel CNN to participate in their ‘Call to Earth’ initiative. The aim of the initiative is to celebrate champions from around the world who are making a difference and inspiring positive change for a sustainable future.

A total of seven schools across the country were shortlisted by CNN based on their environmental initiatives.

This is ASI’s second year of partnership with CNN. In 2021, the school conducted online sessions where students learnt about tackling global problems like pollution, wastage, and environmental degradation.

This year, the school coordinator Pragati Agnihotri designed interesting offline activities for the students of Primary Years Programme (PYP), Middle Years Programme (MYP), and Diploma Programme (DP) to promote environmental consciousness. The theme chosen for CNN’s second annual ‘Call to Earth’ was “Living Oceans: Turning the Tide”.

For PYP students, for instance, the activities were designed under the theme: “Cutting Emissions by Reducing Plastic Usage”. They were taught about the importance of reduce, reuse and recycle by making cloth bags out of old T-shirts. They were also asked to collect plastics from home and paste them on a chart paper to depict marine life.

MYP students participated in activities pertaining to “Yamuna River as a Source of Birds and Other Species”. On a trip to Okhla Bird Sanctuary in Delhi-NCR, the students learnt about how the Yamuna is not just a source of sustenance for people but also for several birds who migrate to the area around October and November, the coordinator informed. They were told that traffic is an added contributor to pollution. The waste thrown in the river not only impacts its marine life but ends up reaching the oceans and polluting them as well.

Vyna Malhotra of MYP 3 said, “First, we were shown a video about the sanctuary on why we should watch the birds from a safe distance. We went on to spot many birds and clicked pictures. We also went on a tour around the Yamuna River.

“Even though only a small part of the river flows through Delhi, the city adds to its pollution tremendously. The polluted river then pollutes the Ganges, Bay of Bengal, and the Indian Ocean, which indirectly harms the Earth.”

Vyna had also prepared a questionnaire for one of her school projects on the impact of human presence on the behaviour of animals. “I asked the supervisor at the sanctuary about the precautions they take to prevent people from going too near the fauna. Later, I found out there were electricity and Wi-Fi towers around the river, which could harm the birds in the area,” she added.

Meanwhile, DP students were asked to interview people living in coastal areas based on the topic “Coastal Lands are the Most Productive and Invaluable Habitats of the Biosphere”. Coastal ecosystems are deeply impacted by industrial chemicals and oils and trade activities. Sometimes, they also end up being dumping grounds for sewage and toxic wastes.