March 11:St Theresa’s School Eco club members, Environmental Application students along with their teacher coordinators participated in ‘Ocean matters - Safeguarding Oceans’ Project.
The USA consulate general Chennai India along with The Energy and resource Institute (TERI) brings a unique school programme that strengthen and promote scientific temperament in school and college. It aims to build capacity and skill set in students, educators and community to spread awareness and proactively safe guard ocean health along the coast of Mumbai, Mormugao and Mangalore.
Teacher representative Mrs Roopa Chowta and Mrs Mangalashree attended the workshop and interacted with the experts from the GLOBE Asia Pacific, Globe Italy and Deaken University, Australia.
Mrs Roopa Chowta guided the students on the execution of the project. The project duration was from October 2022 to March 2023. Students received an in-depth training and monitoring to use the internationally accredited GLOBE and Marine Micro plastic Protocols.
Students conducted their onsite experiments at the different water sources in and around Mangalore. They visited Ullal beach, Netravathi and Shambavi Rivers to carry out their analysis like water temperature, salinity of the water and microplastic present in the outer surface of the water sample. They collected the sample, analysed and document the scientific data.
On 6th March 2023, representative from US Consulate General Chennai, Ms Brindha Jayakanth and Ms Saltanat Kazi visited the school to evaluate the learning from the project. The students demonstrated the experiment in front of the delegates. Principal Sr Lourdes immensely supported the students in the project. She highlighted how these learning have been amplified in the school and community, integrated into the school curriculum and plans to sustain the programme in school. Vice Principal Sr Caron gave her timely inputs and supported the students. This project helped the students improve their scientific temper and reasoning. It also promoted campaign awareness and participation and to bring about positive changes for improving ocean health. Students are looking forward to take part in many such projects in future.
