Environmental initiatives

The school actively promotes and models global environmental awareness and responsibility across its community. Various ongoing initiatives engage students of all ages in these activities

 

Every Day is Earth Day:

Students at DAIS live by the motto 'every day is Earth day'. On a regular basis initiatives to protect the environment and minimize waste are undertaken. Celebration of the Earth day every 22nd April results in building awareness on need for efforts to control environmental damage by trying to make small changes. Poster campaigns, talks, activities are initiated throughout the school to make students conscious of ways to help protect the environment, Switch off the lights and fans when not in use, shut the taps, use both sides of paper, avoid asking for plastic bags, use cotton or jute bags, recycle

 

Garbage Segregation:

The nature club initiative of garbage segregation led to setting up of 2 separate garbage bins on each floor: Bio degradable and non-biodegradable waste. The bins have pictorial indication of the type of waste to be put in each bin. This activity had an awareness building campaign to educate everyone on the harmful effects of non-degradable items with an objective to reduce their use.

 

3R paper project:

An initiative to tackle paper waste called the 3R paper project was launched to ensure that the paper waste was put to productive use. Recycled cartons are painted and placed in each room of the school. All printers also have these boxes. Unused and discarded paper is collected in these cartons by students who call themselves 'paper santas'. The collected paper is then sorted into paper that can be Recycled as:

• - Paper waste is used to make papier machie items that are sold at the school fete and the funds raised to support CAS activities
• - To be collected by rag pickers for selling and recycling.

 

No Paper cups:

Restricted use of paper cups in school canteens. The school staff is encouraged to use ceramic cups for their beverages. Use of paper cups is avoided.

Further to the Honorable Prime Ministers call to the nation, Swachh DAIS' campaign was initiated. All students from classes 2 upwards, participated in a helping to clean the school and surrounding areas by sweeping and cleaning the surrounding zone.

 

Model Green Zone:

The dumping ground behind the school was identified as the model green zone for cultivating into a green zone. 120 students participating in the Young Round Square conference cleaned and beautified the waste land behind the school and planted young trees and saplings to increase the green cover of the area.

Energy conservation: The school lights are being replaced by LED lights ( in a phased manner) in order to conserve electricity.The Air Conditioners in classrooms are switched on and off as per class time table to avoid energy wastage.

 

Nature / Environmental clubs:

Co-curricular from class 1 onwards have planned activities on the understanding of the schools environment and how to better the same. They create 'best from waste', using old newspapers, plastic bottles, cartons etc. And other initiatives to inculcate environment consciousness from a young age

 

Kitchen waste composting:

 

The CAS environment group called Prakriti worked on installing the composting unit to convert kitchen waste into manure. They generated funds for the same during the school fete. The composting units called the 'aaga' are installed in the school.

 

No Pollution Diwali:

During the Diwali festival the Round Square students conducted an awareness campaign called 'No pollution Diwali', to make students understand the harmful effects of bursting fire crackers on the environment and all the living beings.

 

Save Water Campaign:

The drought situation in Maharashtra made children undertake the Save Water campaign. The students build awareness on the necessity to Save Water. They walked around with posters and had sessions with students outside the toilets to make them aware on tips of saving water. They also stood on the street, outside restaurants, visited offices and police stations spreading the message to the entire area about the need and ways to save water.

 

Visit to Nature parks:

Every year various classes visit the nearby nature park ( Maharashtra Nature Park) to learn about sustainability and understand the need to maintain a green cover in the city. The class 5 students also visited the SGNP (Sanjay Gandhi National Park) and see flora and fauna of a national park that exists within the city of Mumbai.

 

Water Mangers for Horses of Matheran:

During the Young Round Square conference hosted by DAIS, students delegates provided water facilities to the horses of Matheran. These horses had no source of drinking water for the whole day. They would suffer due to this especially during the summer months. The water mangers were fashioned out of recycled industrial drums and connected through pipes to a nearby well for water supply.

 

Recycle Bottles Christmas Tree:

Children of Nature Club created a 9 feet tall Christmas tree using discarded plastic water bottles. They painted these bottles and mounted them on each other to form the tree. They surrounded the tree with messages indicating the need to recycle plastic and plastic waste.

 

- Report by Manisha Nanda