Flying wild at Mansagar lake

JAIPUR: In the times of climate change and global warming a new initiative to create awareness is gathering momentum among the young ones who would be the most affected by the actions of their parents today. The program to pass the responsibility to concerned citizens and reduce the environmental degradation responsibility on the government aims at teaching the teachers and equipping them with tools to better understand and teach students the importance of preserving the eco-system.

The school teachers are in for a long term international training sessions for environmental education EE, following a US expert, Edward J. Mc Crea's decision to offer the US techniques what he calls 'Flying Wild.' The program would equip teachers with environment related teaching skills focusing both on the techniques and the content.

After concluding four workshops at Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Bhilwara and Jaipur, Edward, president Environmental Education & Conservation Global said, "The techniques relate to informing teachers how they can do practical on birds, migration, water, lakes, threatened species, prey-predator relationship, avoids using chemicals and importance of bio-diversity to name a few."

Nearly 250 school teachers were involved in the new initiative, hoping each would teach a few hundred daily sending the messages across to a quarter million students, parents, relatives, all over which would create a major impact. Some salient features he introduced to teachers were animated educational games, which entailed taking them out in open fields and exhorting them to behave like a hawk and sparrow to realize bird's relationship. Likewise bio-treatment of sewer figured in prominently in his teachings.

"The teachers were skilled and enthusiastic to adopt new measures. In Jaipur we selected the ManSagar Lake as it was an ideal case study of turning around a cesspool to a sustainable lake eco-system. At Mansagar Lake the teaching group learnt the importance of bio-treatment ways adopted at the lake," said Edward who would led the 17th Birding Fair at Mansagar Lake.