[Reader-list] Children and Environment

[srirang jha]

 Hope this provides a little releif to the list readers from hot political
posts!


*A conversation with Arvind Gupta, a toy-maker and thinker*


How are the emerging concerns of global warming and climatic change
important

for young children?

Children will have to face the consequences of global warming. They should
become

conscious of their ecological footprints. They should be made aware that the
present

consumerist / materialist life style is not sustainable any longer. Every
little act, every

little step, every person and action count.

As citizens of planet earth, what happens to earth affects its young
citizens too. To that

extent global warming and climatic changes are important to children. They
did not

create this mess. Earlier generations / development paradigms were
responsible for them.

But as Earth's Citizens the young children have to imbibe eco-sensibilities,
which can be

summed up in a single, sentence LIVE SIMPLY THAT OTHERS MAY SIMPLY LIVE

How can we sensitize the children about environmental crisis?

Our daily lived experience of traffic jams, sky-rocketing prices of fuel;
high noise levels,

load shedding, water closures, adulterated food etc. can be the starting
point to engage the

children with discussions. These then should be followed by actions an
individual can

take to reduce the crisis. The next step would be to involve the immediate
group (family,

peer, school buddies) and finally the community.

BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO BE, may sound a little cynical in this consumerist

era but unless we are honest in what we do ourselves, we will cut little ice
with children.

Children are too smart and see through blatant adult political lies.

Before sensitizing the children, the adults need to imbibe these
sensitivities themselves.

They could make a beginning by living it themselves - by consuming less,
using public

transport, buying locally, car pooling, adapting solar water heaters etc.
Doing more with

less should be the credo. Watching less TV and taking more nature walks is a
good

option.

What role can the media, community, school and parents play in cultivating
ecofriendly

habits among the children?

Media encourages unsustainable, consumerist life styles. One has to just
look at the

advertisement in magazines and on TV. Students should be made to look at
them critically.

This could be done through interesting activities in the class. There are
some good

programmes too.

In the context of the city, the community comprises of the housing colonies,

neighborhood etc. Ecologically conscious housing societies, can work out
garbage

segregation, waste recycling, encouraging solar energy, rain harvesting,
minimizing use

of private transport by car pools, minimum use of lifts, electricity off for
2 hours a day

etc.

Schools can play an important role. Best example, "Say No to Crackers"
campaign in

Delhi —the capital of India made a big difference as many children abstained
from

crackers. Schools should go beyond merely making projects, having quizzes,
debates.

They should evolve environment friendly practices and follow them - less use
of paper,

plastics, and packaging may be a starting point.

What kind of activities would you suggest to inculcate an attitude among
children

that is conducive to conservation?

Occasional visits to adjoining slums will help middle class children develop
a respect for

the resilience of the poor. If they can stay for just one day in a slum,
that would be very

educative. Where do the poor shit? How difficult is to get a pail of water?
These direct

first hand experiences of deprivation of the vast majority should be the
first lessons for a

lasting eco-conscious-ness. Without lectures or sermons, children will
imbibe the lessons

of frugality, of doing things with less.

The consumerist trash plastic bottles, tetrapacks, ice-cream sticks and so
much junk are

overflowing from rubbish dumps into streets. Children should be encouraged
to make

their own toys, learning / teaching aids using trash. It will have a double
benefit — it will

break the stereotype that science can be only done with burettes, pipettes
and fancy

glassware and plasticware. Also, the children will become active agents of
cleaning up

the societal mess and will also be learning to manipulate different
materials to make a

good working science model.

You have been engaged in innovative toy making from waste and discarded

material. How far do you think your efforts have succeeded in creating an
ambience

for conservation?

There is a very strong element of re-cycling in the toys and science models
I make. The

Indian tradition implicitly believes in reincarnation. This could be easily
extended to the

material world - all the cartons, bottles, tubes, batteries, plastic cups we
discard every

day.

I have a website http://arvindguptatoys.com There is a section on toys,
which is the most

popular section. There are 1400 photographs of Toys from Trash on the
website. It opens

up amazing possibilities of doing creative activities using junk. My efforts
are a small

step towards creating more sustainable, low-energy, eco-friendly toys -
converting societal

waste into children's assets.

Do you think that environmental education should be made compulsory at all

levels?

Experience has shown that anything made compulsory in schools and colleges
is met

with resistance from students. No one likes to study an additional subject.
Our children

are already overburdened and a new subject is not a good idea. Instead,
environmental

concerns should be integrated into already existing subjects. For example it
would be

greatly educative to show a 20-film "Story of Stuff" (Free download from

www.storyofstuff.com). It will help children see the consequences of their
own livestyles

on the environment.

The Internet has been liberating in many ways. You need not be a big media
baron or

politician to have your voice heard. One of the proposals with the National
Council for

Educational Research & Training (India) is that children in schools survey
their

immediate environment — make a list of the plants, animals, birds in their
region, make a

survey of the polluted water bodies, industries and each schools uploads it
on a common

website. In due course we will have an authentic biodiversity register — a
common pool

of information, which everyone can dip in. Students could do all this.


-- 
Srirang K Jha