Students Plant 14 Trees at the Schoolyard

Altogether 63 students from 7 schools attended the Plant-for-the-Planet Academy in Government Junior High School, Jhankat, India.

The Academy was made possible thanks to the dedicated commitment of Plant-for-the-Planet Foundation, Govt. Junior High School Jhankat, TGIC Eco Club and YCSG members. The event was free of charge for all the attending children, who were aged 09-14. Special thanks go to Plant-for-the-Planet Academy staff Adelya for helping us throughout the Academy preparation and Harshdev Punera and Priyanka Chand for all their hard work and efforts to make this academy successful.   We would also like to thank Mrs Meena Samant, Mr Ajay Singh and Mr Narendra Rautela for helping us contact all schools and for providing us with the venue and other basic facilities for the Academy. Not to be forgotten are the many helpers and supporters, without whom the implementation of the Academy, venue, technology. Tree-planting event and much more would not have been possible.

After a brief welcome and registration process, the full attention of the children turned to the presentation "Now we children save the world!” which was given by Plant-for-the-Planet Coordinator Dharmendra Kapri.  The presentation covered: sources of CO2, greenhouse effect, global warming, photosynthesis, climate change, climate crisis, Plant-for-the-Planet and global justice. These complicated topics were explained in a suitable way for children. After the presentation, the children had the opportunity to clear their doubts in an interactive and question and answer session.

After a short break, the children were divided into 6 groups to learn about global distribution and justice in the World Game. The children distributed playing figures, candy and balloons on the world maps laid out on the floor as symbols of the world’s population, wealth and CO2 emissions respectively.  Each group had one Moderator from our Academy team to help them understand the rules and the process. The children were first asked to distribute the balloons, candy and tokens as per as their knowledge and later on corrected by the moderator wherever needed. This way they learned about the unjust distribution of these resources. Eventually, the CO2 emissions and wealth were distributed fairly – everyone has equal rights.

After that, the children prepared and presented short passages from the opening presentation that they had seen at the start of the day. They gave each other tips on how to improve their presentations in the future and a short session on How to Give a Good Presentation was conducted by Miss Priyanka Chand and Harshdev Punera.

After a lunch break, the afternoon kicked off with the short videos on Plant-for-the-Planet and how Plant-for-the-Planet plants trees in Mexico.

Now, the children relocated to the schoolyard to plant their own trees! Before the planting commenced, the children listened intently to the advice of Mr Anand Kumar from the Eco-club. He explained how and when to plant trees, and also showed the children how to care for them to make sure they survive. In total, they planted 14 trees in just 50 minutes with the assistance of the Eco Club Members and YCSG members.

The children started the "World Café" module after a short break. The children worked on the following questions: "How do we ensure that the media reports about us?", "How do we motivate the adults?", "How do we motivate friends and classmates?" and "How do we organize a planting party?"

After everyone had the opportunity to write down their thoughts to each question, the children were asked to present their thoughts and future plans in front of other students and teachers.

After a long, fruitful, and enjoyable day, all 63 participants received their certificates from Miss Priyanka Chand and Mrs. Meena Samant, which recognized them as a Climate Justice Ambassador.  An interesting day had come to an end. Apart from the experience and newly found knowledge, all new Ambassadors got a copy of Tree-by-Tree, and of course the Plant-for-the-Planet T-shirt.

We kept some memories of the day in this photo gallery.

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