Lawrence School Magazine Report - Students' visit to Lakes and Toyota Factory Ecozone

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After two years of Covid-19 pandemic, Schools reopened in 2022 session as the need to protect our nature was understood better during this time.
Under the able guidane of Mr. Jai Sharma, who is a passionate Nature and wildlife Educator for National Geographic & member of IUCN CEC, students embarked on the journey of finding deeper connections with nature and learn more about Biodiversity , its role and our dependency on it.
We started the nature club for grade 6 & 7 on 31st May 2022. The inauguration speech was presented by Mr. Charan ( Asst. conservator of forests, Bangalore south) with introduction about the term ‘’ BIODIVERSITY’’ and need to protect it. The year’s learning plan & topics were shared and discussed.
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1. June – School Garden – The first topic bought the excitement in students and they worked with enthusiasm to plan their dream garden in school. Gardens play an important role in providing an opportunity to students to connect with nature in their own backyard, learn about plants, soil, insects and their inter- dependencies. Students made various designs and also shared the types of plants they wanted to plant?. Like- Medicinal, flowering, vegetable, ornamental etc.

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2. July – The students got small saplings and seeds for the next activity and did the plantation in the school premises. They started observing the growht of plants to learn the related topics in their curriculum.
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3. August – The interlinking topics of Role of Forests, Trees and Insects were explained to students through PPT presentations, short videos and case studies from across the globe. Now the presentations of students were becoming more interesting as they started quizzing and used other creative ways to keep other students alert and curious.

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4. September – Students learnt about the roles of urban trees as they provide resources, absorb carbon,provide oxygen, food and shelter to all life forms. They learnt about their main role as climate, carbon, nutrition and water regulator in nature.
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5. October – Theme of the month was Importance of Birds as Pest controllers, pollinators, food providers. Students started observing various birds in their natural habitat and their adaptations to thrive in various ecosystems.
6. November – Students learnt about the very important role Soil plays in serving as medium for life and food. Thus how valuable they are for the health of our planet.

7. December – The students learnt about Importance of lakes and their roles in mitigating floods, recharging ground water and providing habitat to many aquatic biodiversity. A field trip to Agara lake was organised, where students observed documented and analysed various problems associated with urban water bodies like water pollution, sewage dumping which leads to eutrophication.

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8. January – Now since the students were able to relate to and find connections in all life forms within nature, the focus shifted to understanding causes and effects of Climate change, global warming and impact of Biodiversity loss on the planet. We covered topics like endangered species, symbiotic relationships around us in nature.
Students started doing field projects on biodiversity mapping, soil and insect surveys, water testing carbon mapping in the school garden. These projects are helpful to understand the problems, identifying the various causes and the impact on the envirnment.
9. Students visited the Ecozone in Toyota Factory at Bidadi where they experienced the various elements of nature education like Ecology park, evolution garden, medicinal garden, Water park, Recyle hub, Sacred groves, underground ecology, pollination garden, wetland management and more. The students made a final report on their learnings from the entire year and presented in front of the entire school.