Aiming to sensitise children towards the cause of environment protection, the school has come up with interesting ways to save water, power, fuel and paper – JIGNESH BAROT
While there has been a lot of debate in the academic circles about the educating students on the importance of going green and getting them to mitigate the impacts of climate change, very few schools are actually walking the talk.
One of these is Udgam School for Children. The school has prepared a five-year plan to become the finest environment-friendly school in the city. By making some simple changes in the infrastructure, they plan to not only save the environment, but also reduce costs.
The wait is over. After a month-long competition, the Ahmedabad Mirror has zeroed in on the sabse cleanest office, school and street in the city. And, the winners are Udgam school in Thaltej, Wagh Bakri office in Ambawadi and AMC Staff Colony at Ellisbridge. The runners-up are St Xavier’s Loyola Hall in Navrangpura, ICECD office in Bopal and New Suryanarayan Nagar in Ghatlodia.
WHAT AN IDEA
THE EXECUTIVE director of the institute, Manan Chowksi feels that the ‘green’ building principles are not new. For years, they’ve been called sustainable or energy-efficient. Now, the popular term is ‘green,’ and dozens of green-building programmes have sprung up in the past decade.
We were aware of this concept but in 2007 we were inspired by Al Gore’s movie, An inconvenient Truth. And decided that we should switch to green standards and save the nature,” he said.
SAVING ELECTRICITY
WITH LONG-TERM energy costs rising, “green technology” is the future, feels experts.
Udgam School has replaced electric appliances with powersaving tubelights and light bulbs. They are minimising on the usage of power by allowing the classrooms to be sufficiently sunlit. For this, the authorities have installed sun-control films on window panes. Also, outdated and powerconsuming devices have been replaced with new ones.
In our day-to-day operations we are striving towards saving power and water. We have introduced power-efficient LCD monitors instead of the conventional ones,” said Chowksi.
COLLECTING RAINWATER
ANOTHER HALLMARK of green building is the water-filtration system. “With the underground water level depleting day-by-day, we have constructed a bore and installed a filtration system in such a way that 70 per cent of the rainwater will be re-used. This system cost us Rs 2 lakhs. Autoshot flush tanks and taps are also being installed in toilets, to save water,” he added.
PAPERLESS OFFICE
THE SCHOOL is using state-of art-technologies to implement some innovative ideas to protect the environment. To minimize the use of paper, school has refrained from publishing any brochures or leaflets. Most of the internal communication is done via e-mails. Their newsletter has gone online in order to cut down on paper and ink. The parents are also encouraged to use the internet. Notices, circulars and photographs are flashed on the LCD monitor installed on the notice board.
This year the entire admission process was done online,” Mr.Manan Choksi said.
This news can be read online at : Times of India
