Visual Critical Thinking X: What's happening with all the carts?

Photographed by K. Ramnath Chandrasekhar

Today’s class was interesting as I had decided to bring awareness about a topic that was close to home using this picture.  The children had to observe the picture and come to a conclusion as to what was happening and give evidence to the claim they make.

Shahul observed that these looked like poor villagers transporting sand to build mud houses as they couldn’t afford concrete houses. Cessie agreed with Sal and mentioned that they transport mud to make their home and wet sand was needed for it.  When questioned what is the difference mud and sand and do they use sand to build mud houses, they thought maybe clayey soil or sand mixed with water is mud. 

Izzy mentioned that they were transporting the sand as construction material to other places. Saharban told that it looked like they were collecting even wooden planks to help construct their houses or they were using the wood for making more carts. That’s when Mooz jumped in with his observation that one cart was empty and turned in the opposite direction which meant that they kept going back to get more and more sand. Ruqayyah observed that they seemed to have travelled far away for transporting the sand and were just in the middle of a vast plain where it had rained as there were water puddles and agreed with Mooz’s observation of one cart going to get more sand perhaps.  On closer look, they all agreed that the wooden planks were in place to hold the sand, filled to the cart’s brim, from slipping off.

The caption of the picture was revealed and we zoomed in on the picture, we could see the blurred images of at least three earthmover equipment mining sand.  I referred them to the photo story by noted conservationist and educator, Ramnath Chandrasekhar, on how monsoon failure and dry rivers leads people on a sand mining spree. We discussed the dire consequences of this environmental imbalance which sometimes even leads to the river changing course or disappearing entirely not to mention how people lose life in this illegal sand mining incidents.

The children were shocked to know the details and had many questions on why does the government not intervene, how can someone continue to destroy natural resources despite knowing the consequences and how were they permitted to wreak such havoc in society. Does the construction industry deploy such means to procure their material and are they not aware of the illegal sources of their material?  Questions, that are very difficult to answer by any one person. 

The impact this activity has on these young minds is tremendous. Some of the outcomes are the ability to observe, analyse for evidence to back their observations, form thoughts and voice their opinions, accept others’ perception even when it did not align with one’s perception along with learning to take a stand for what is right.  All this not mentioning the awareness created about social issues. Can I ask for more in an English class for grade 7 as I foresee influencers being shaped out of my students?  

- Naqeeb Sultana

Middle School English Teacher

Environmental Education Program - Grades 5,6 Annual Report

Very happy to share the Annual Report on the Environmental Education Program conducted at Al Qamar Academy by the Environment Education Team of @Pitchandikulum Forest Team.

Environmental Education is absolutely critical for all children today. Al Qamar Academy partnered with the Environment Education Team at the Pitchandikulum Forest Group to conduct a 2 year program for students of Grades 5-7.

Students of grades 5 and 6 were introduced to local ecology - our rivers (can you name Chennai's 4 rivers?), the wetlands, forests (did you know we have National Park in the midst of Chennai?), the birds, reptiles and other creatures that co-exist with us. They learned about sustainable architecture - by visiting a rammed earth home in progress, the massive sand dunes just outside Chennai, the mangroves in Marakkanam and so much more. The program was a mix of site visits and inhouse discussions.

The children rounded off their year long learning by participating with select other schools in an Eco Fest where they presented their findings to the general public.

The entire education program was completely unique and extremely valuable. The children now not only know their local ecology, but also have made a resolve to protect and sustain it.

A huge shout out to the incredible and fantastic educators from PFC - you guys are just just amazing!!

Do check out this pathbreaking and innovative program which is a role model for how children should learn about the environment.

Check out this wonderful report

EcoFest 2020 - Ecology of Madras through the Eyes of Children

"Answer the quiz on insects and win a handmade bookmark" was the persuasive invitation. Trapped by a child's  winning smile, I turned over the quiz card and was bamboozled. These were tough, really tough questions.  Sheepishly, I gave up only to receive a brilliant lecture on entomology.

The event - the first ever "EcoFest - Ecology of Madras through the eyes of children" held at Vidya Niketan Matriculation School on 7th March. The event was a culmination of two years of Pitchandikulum Forest Consultants' engagement with 4 different schools in and around Chennai. Al Qamar Academy was one of the four, the others being Vidya Niketan, Gurukulum, Kovalam and Naddukuppam High School along with some homeschooling children.

The children presented their learning through research projects, models, games, quizzes, and even a few videos.  Topics ranged from Reptiles, Sea Salinity, Animals of the Adyar Poonga, Ennore Creek and the impact of power generation, water pollution, medical industrialization and even a Carbon Footprint analysis.  The children made clay models, used Lego to represent industrialization, experiments with ink to demonstrate oil spills.

It was very evident that the children had in-depth knowledge knowledge on every topic that they were presenting. The presentations were very interactive and engaging. One project that caught my attention was the topic about industrial revolution. This topic was  studied by an unschooled child and Al Qamar child. Both had so much information and inference and presented a balanced view on need for industrial revolution versus the impact it had on nature. I could feel the empathy and a sense of community embedded in the study.

Be it about it synthetic medicines or impact of borewells or about the fishermen or the ecosystem impacted by the Ennore power plant or the industrial revolution,  children had done a detailed research. They have approached the issues with so much passion and had put efforts to genuinely find a solution.

All the presentations were fascinating and at the same time intriguing. The children really engaged the listener and had an answer for every question asked.

The cultural show in the evening conveyed the children's messages through drama, puppet shows, skits and a therakoothu. The Al Qamar street play, scripted and directed entirely by a group of 5th and 6th graders, was tongue in cheek depiction about the disaster wrought by multinationals in third world countries. 

Now its simply up to us adults to seriously reflect on their messages, to make a change in our lives so we can leave behind a livable Earth.

- By Aneesa Jamal & Shajitha Syed

Ecological Floating Island Update

Totally thrilled! ! 

Al Qamar Academy students participated in setting up the floating islands on Adyar River.

Today see the impact of the work.

See how well the floating island is faring.

Moreover, as participants in the Ecology program by Pitchandikulum Forest, our students have grown in so many ways in the past two years - as their environmental consciousness evolved.

An unbeatable learning rarely experienced by schoolchildren.

Come see their work this Sat at the ECO FEST 2020 - Ecology of Madras through the eyes of Children

Kids pen mini graphic novels on Soil

We were privileged to have "Soil Vasu" Sir come visit Al Qamar. His talk was organised my the Consumer Action Group (CAG) as a part of the month long events on Climate Change.

Inspired by his talk, 2 students penned these mini graphic novels explaining what they learned.

The first is by Sarah Malang of Grade 6 called Soil.

Another is a trippy one by Muhsin Maricar also of grade 6 called Soil Epic.

Check both out.

Soil Vasu Sir's talk

We were privileged to have "Soil Vasu" Sir come visit Al Qamar. His talk was organised my the Consumer Action Group (CAG) as a part of the month long events on Climate Change.

Here is a blog by a 5th grader who attended his talk :

On Friday we had a talk about soil, there was Vasu Uncle who came and we did a few activities and we learned a lot.

He started by telling how important soil is because healthy soil which means earthworms, snails, micro organisms etc need to be in the soil so that it mixes the soil and nurtures it. So healthy soil equals to healthy plants and healthy plants lead to a healthy life.  

Then we did a activity on collecting different soils like soil from direct sun, soil from under a big tree, soil from under a small plant.  We discussed about the different soils and what makes them different.

Then we did another experiment. First we put one type of sand in an empty bottle. Then we took another empty bottle and filled it with two different type of sand. Then in both bottles that had the sand  we put water and let it sit. 

While all of that was happening Vasu Uncle occasionally told us many facts about soil and how it are good for us.

Then we again did another experiment.  Uncle called three volunteers and told each of them to take three different soils and then put drops of water until it was a good texture good enough to mould. Then Uncle told them to make different shapes and see if they cracked or broke. 

We also spoke about how weeds are good for plants. Then we checked the water bottles and Uncle showed how there are different layers from bottom to top. 

At last the last experiment Uncle had two recycled pots.  One of the had no plants and  the other one had a plant and many weeds. The recycled pots were made from halves of a water can but they kept it tilted so the mouth of the water can was something like a drain.  So then Uncle poured water on the one with no plants. We saw that the water did not get soaked but since the can was tilted the water came out through the mouth but when uncle poured water on the one with the plant and the weeds the water got soaked within seconds.

WHAT I LEART 
I learnt many new things about how soil is very important and what is good for soil and plants.   

Zoya B. Taher, Grade 5

Tholpavai Koothu performance on Saving our Wetlands

Tholpavai Koothu is a 400 year old shadow puppet theatre. Kalaimamani Muthuchandran and a group of environmental activists developed a show on saving wetlands.

 The children watched with rapt attention. They laughed their heads off at the funny antics of the puppets. At the end of the show the artist, Mr Muthuchandran, spoke about the tradition of shadow puppet shows. He explained how the puppets are made, the intricacies of light and colour, how he is able to use different voices to play different characters.

The activists explained how unfettered construction damages wetlands and leads to ecological disasters like floods.

The children had several questions and comments at the end. Which they shared with  parents once they returned home. One parent reported "My kids shared their puppet show experience... they were just overwhelmed...! 😄😄😄"

Definitely an event they're going to remember lifelong.

Nityanand Jayaraman visit

Al Qamar students were thrilled to have environmental activist  Nityanand Jayaraman come speak.  Here's a blogpost by one of the students who participated in the interaction:

Today, we talked about something we know in happening to something we have, But don't care about.

It is something not everyone has. Water. Our Beach. Our land.

We have 3 rivers in Chennai. Cooum, Kosasthaliyar, Adyar. And 4 estuaries. 3 from the river and one near the Kovalam boating house, flowing from Kovalam. This is all fresh water meeting the sea. And we want fresh water to drink, bath, brush, pretty much live. When we put bore wells take water from the ground,  or pollute the water, we are changing a major resource of our life.

 Look at Chennai, when we say wild things in nature, we think of Amazon Rainforest or the Niagara Falls. We don’t realize there is one wild thing near us which a lot of people haven't seen in their life. Bay of Bengal. It is crazy in there and how the fishes live, the pollution it intakes.

A lot of parts which have now been “developed” are on what used be a lake or an Eri.  What I am trying to say is, Chennai, most of the times has too much water or too little water. When we build houses or buildings on waterbodies, the water should fill up somewhere right?

According to Nityanand Uncle, there is a great relationship between the Earth and the sky. When we tend to come in between them, we are breaking the bond. They will do what ever they can to meet. So when the Waterford is now covered with “developed" stuff., the rain wants to fall on Earth. And it will. And that’s how our houses and buildings get flooded.

 What does flood mean? Something has reached it's maximum capacity and can’t take in anymore, it will tend to flow out. When we develop, we are changing the capacity of the water bodies with cement, roads, houses and much more. So you can’t blame nature if it's doing its job and WE come in the way.

What is  development really. It means to make something better, right? Better for people to live in and having enough resources. We should really change that people in that sentence and change it to living things. So when are developing India, are all living things and Earth getting what they need?’ Let’s take our cleaning drives for instance. They clean India right, but we really  are taking dumps from one place  and dumping it someplace else, that’s not cleaning, that’s moving. That place will still be trashed, still stink. Right? And we really need to think about what we do and really CLEAN India.

By Shahana Shameer, Grade 7

Visit to Kuppai Matters

Have you ever seen what happens to trash? It gets recycled or goes to the dump. But it also goes into the forests or the oceans and kills or harms the animals. You might think how it harms animals? I will give you a few examples - like a whale having plastic in its tummy, a cow contains plastic particles in its milk. One sad think is a turtle having a straw in its nose and it cried when the boaters tried to take it out. Last but eyeopening, a cow with 5 tons of plastic in its stomach. 

Now you know why I am here. I will tell you how to use waste. You have to give the proper recycling to things like water bottle without glue stickers. Things you can't recycle is chappati package because it has different materials like plastic and paint. 

For eggshells, fruit and vegetable peels, cut nails, leftover food, dead leaves, apple crusts, you can compost to make soil and you can plant a plant!

More ways are there like making your own paper, which you will do after. Using less plastic, thinking before you buy a package item, if you can recycle it or not.


One more thing is having 4 trash bins - one green, one blue, one red and one yellow. The green is for composting, blue is for things which you don;t know which bin it goes, yellow is for recycling. and red is for hazard thing like cat poop and dog poop. 

Now you know what to do with trash. 

You might have in mind how to compost? That I will tell you now.  First collect peels, eggshells, nails, apple crusts and left over food. Next take compost and add it to the peels and all that. Or add more, rotten bread, curd, milk, if you don't have compost. Finally keep on adding composting things and leave it for 40-45 days. 

By Mansoor Ahmed, Grade 5

Ecology Class - Year 2 : Visit to the Organic Farmers'` Market

What exactly does it mean to have organic products? A simple definition would be….anything in its true state where it hasn’t been tainted with harmful things like pesticides.

Being honest, using pesticides and artificial fertilizers do help, but here are quite a few disadvantages that will harm the product and will harm us in the long run.  Organic can also mean “pure” which doesn’t only apply to how produce is grown, it can also apply to the method in which it’s acquired or stock prices etc.

Basically, the more transparent your business is, the better. So, here’s the process in which food travels to markets and such (using fruit as an example).

Seems okay right? Well, actually, once you’ve studied the process properly, it’ll seem different.

When farmers give their produce to the middleman, the middleman gets to decide the price based on the season, demand, sales etc. And not based on the farmer’s own input cost, effort and time. Also, with this, there is more demand for produce when it is not the season. So, farmers would work hard to grow the produce and when its time to hand it to the middleman, only to get rejected.

Did you know that over 700 varieties of cotton in India have been replaced by American cotton, which also brought in the use of toxic dyes? Wow, how depressing. 

So, basically the motive of this whole talk was to make us think – do I know where all my food, clothes or really anything is coming from?

- Ishaal Abdul Azeez, Grade 7

Rain Centre - learning about Rainwater Harvesting

Raising and educating children to be sensitive, compassionate and environmentally conscious is a tremendously important task.  As the saying goes, "It takes a village to raise a child." And when people like Mr Sekar Raghavan give their time to educate children, it really casts a huge influence on a child's mind. 

Grade 4 students from Al Qamar Academy  visited the Rain Centre - Akash Ganga Trust today and learned about rainwater harvesting from Mr. Sekar Raghavan himself.

MashaAllah it was a wonderful opportunity to interact with a person of his calibre - who has contributed so much to the awareness about water conservation in Chennai. And is a very humble man himself.

Hopefully after today's visit to the Rain Centre - Akash Ganga Trust, and meeting Sir,  they will internalise the importance of water conservation and harvesting.

#realeducation #rainwaterharvesting #conservation #ecology #environment #education #chennai

River Walk - Tracing the Adyar River from source to estuary

Have you been on a river walk? You may have had different results. Here are ours:

Our river walk trip traced the stages of the Adyar river. And how we as humans living in Chennai are making it hard for a river to flow clean.

1st Stop – Chembarambakkam Lake

First, we went to explore the Chembarambakkam Lake or Eri. The bus didn’t have a road so we went by the bund. Which was really long and we felt like we were travelling on a long rocky road.

Chembarambakkam provides drinking water to most of Chennai.  It covers an area of 2600 acres and is 80 feet deep. The bigger picture is really that it is an Eri. It was designed long ago by village people.  There was lush agriculture near the eri, which used the eri water. There are the basic components of an eri in the Chembarambakkam “Lake”. But industries have been built over the agricultural lands. Some of the chemicals produced by the industries enter the eri.  

The amount of water in the lake was very less but at least better than last few months. In June, the water was gone, and the ground was all cracked up.  Which makes it hard to believe that the same lake overflowed and flooded half of Chennai city in 2015!

In the eri itself, there is something called a “kalang”.  You have a kind of a screw you have to twist and the doors sort of open and let the water out into a channel. The water goes to the field and helps in irrigation. But, now the Kalang doesn’t work because now the fields have been turned into buildings and industries. 

43% of the water in that lake is gone by evaporation. Near the Bandh there is something called “Madaga” which is the big dam which stopped the flowing of the eri water. We went close to the dam’s gates and saw the structures. There are a total of 19 gates. We went to a high point and observed the whole Eri.

In 2015 when the floods took place in Chennai, the dam stored a lot of water and the gates weren’t open even when the water came up to 90% - because the dam’s purpose is to store water for drinking. And if they opened the gates, the drinking water would have gone out.  But the dam was about to overflow, so they opened the gates in the night when everyone was sleeping. This caused the houses near the Eri and in Saidapet, Adyar, Velachery, Guindy to flood.

Visiting Chembarambakkam was a wonderful experience, but the saddest part was there was garbage even here.

Next we stopped at a garbage dump next to the road. It was raining and we saw fumes because there was so much toxic waste. Cows were eating the garbage. The garbage was also flowing into the river as it was raining.

2^nd Stop Anakaputhur – Under the Bridge

We headed on to Anakaputhur.  Here we went under the bridge to a sandbank under which the Adyar river flows. It was horrible, smelly and slimy place filled with sewage. Yuk. The water was black and highly alkaline because of the leather industries releasing chemicals into the water. During rains, the garbage from the rubbish dumps gets washed out and joins the river.  The river flowed under the bank in pipes. But there weren’t a lot of pipes. There was foam there due to toxic contamination.

3^rd Stop – Mambalam Canal/ Adyar River

Next we went to see the Mambalam Canal where it joins the Adyar river, next to a golf course. Of course, we didn’t go to play! The water was really black and polluted. It was also stinky and crazily dumped in, but hey, nowadays, everything is dumped in.  The golf course uses soft grass which requires a lot of water and fertilizers every week. This leaches into the canal. 

Plus, there is garbage in the canal. There is a “boom” which is a filter across the canal to trap solid garbage, but it was of little use so it’s not maintained.  There was a plant name water hyacinth which eats metals in the water. But it covers the water and reduces the oxygen in the water. There was another weed growing in huge clumps.  So basically, there is not a lot of wildlife in the water.  We went across the path to see the top view of the Adyar River. It was not fine. We saw mosquito larvae and other disgusting polluted stuff.  It was really disheartening to look and realise that all of us have destroyed a water body so much.

4^th Stop – Adyar Estuary/ Besant Nagar Beach

All that disgusting stuff now went to the sea. There also, like every other place, it was unbearably stinky. But differently. You can’t believe how much foam was there on the beach. Waves and waves of foaming effluent.  We were sitting far away but still it was smelling worse than rotten eggs.  There was a sandbank between the river and the sea which is good for filtration. But a JCB was taking that out since there were buildings near the estuary who were facing a mosquito problem.

Reflections

This trip was sad but eye opening because now I am able to realise what we did to Nature. I also realised that the water I am saving is not enough. Next time you go to the beach and play in the water, think, what you are really stepping into. That same water with the pollution of the river – has fish living in it and we eat the fish! A “sewage cycle”, isn’t it?

- By Grade 7 students - Shahana, Rayya, Hasna & Tasneem

Talk on Indigenous Cotton

We were delighted to have Swaminathan Vaithilingam come give a talk on indigenous cotton at Al Qamar Academy. He narrated the history of indigenous cotton, explained how a group of people are trying to revive this crop and the difficulties being faced.  The children got to see natural cotton, the yarn and some gorgeous clothes made out these using natural dyes. The children understood the key point that life shouldn't be about unlimited choices, but instead about  sustainable choices.

 Here is an account by a student of his talk:


India used to have a wide and vast variety of cotton, yet, here in the present, only 2% of our cotton is "Pure" Indian. So, how did this happen? Let us find out..

HISTORY OF INDIAN COTTON

As of current, our vast varieyt of cotton has been replaced by American cotton when the British colonized India. The reason being that, Indian cotton was getting popular - with audiences outside India as well. The British were afraid that this might affect their sheep wool industry. So they started to experiment with American cotton and growing it in other places.

The problem with this is that different varieties of "Indian Cotton" are made to fit different Indian climates. The term for this is called agro climates.

HOW FARMER SUFFER FROM NON AGRO CLIMATIC COTTON

The companies provide cotton seeds for farmers to grow. The farmers have to pay back using the money they make from the cotton. In some places, the seeds won't grow well, so the farmers are in debt. This forces some people to commit suicide.

TOXINS THAT GO INTO MAKING CLOTHES

Honestly most of us are aware of this problem - factories making toxic dyes which pollutes the area around it. Despite thi, we turn a blind eye and say "Its not that bad.". Little do we know that the clothes made in factories are "wear and throw away". So you constantly buy more making the environment a toxic and polluted area.

WHAT TO DO TO IMPROVE OUR SITUATION

It might not seem big, but if you cut down on buying from big companies that profit from the wear and throw away clothing and switch to more eco friendly sources and encourage other people you know to do so as well.

- Ishaal Azeez, Grade 7