Teacher turns a crusader of environment education

Tirupati: A government school teacher G Sudhakar strongly believes that, “whatever we take from this nature has to be promptly give back in abundance. If the future generations made any mistake, one should find fault with their predecessors only. And, every creature has equal right just as human beings to live on this planet earth”. He got an inspiration from the biodiversity convention held in Hyderabad in 2015.

Sudhakar collected the newspaper clippings of that convention and made students to read them, who responded positively. From then onwards, he made several flex charts to educate and create awareness among young minds on biodiversity and environmental protection.

The charts on biodiversity–what we learnt, peculiarities in diversity, the value of tree, birds are the barometers, ‘sapta swaralu’, ‘navagrahalu’ and several others were informative and educative. He was putting many efforts to approach various school managements to provide him an opportunity to educate students. So far, he covered 50,000 students spread over 120 schools in Chittoor district. He organised programmes in few schools in Telugu states and in Kerala as well.

He has developed a story for each species and each story imbibed five values – ecological value, scientific principle, economic value, life skill and environmental value. The idea was to create right attitude among the students on these values and the importance of species. Thus, they will develop protective behaviour towards creatures. He made flex charts on gods also to explain that for example, the family of Lord Siva was having a total food chain with their vahanas and food items.

Interestingly, he explains the students that several animals and birds used to work as whether reporters. For instance, the ‘chirrup’ sounds of sparrows denote that the rain is going to stop.

In another chart, he tells how the noise of various animals or birds can be identified as ‘sapta swaras’. To note a few, the screaming sound of Peacocks are known as ‘shadjamam’ and the grunt of a bull is known as ‘rishabham’. The horse neigh can be identified as ‘daivatham and so on.

He organises each programme continuously for 5-6 hours with an hour for interactive question and answer session. Students in all schools were showing interest on environmental protection, Sudhakar said. By observing nature, one can get bundles of pleasure, he felt. Now working at the Mandal Parishad Upper Primary (MPUP) School at Kothapalli village of Yadamari mandal in Chittoor district. Sudhakar told The Hans India that his aim was to reach one lakh students and spread his mission to national level. He was thinking of organising seminars and forming student clubs.

He has been spending his own resources for material, mike set, projector etc., and plan programmes mostly on second Saturdays and other holidays. He has written a book on ‘Biodiversity – Our heritage’ and the recipient of State best teacher award. Also, won biodiversity conserver award from State Biodiversity Board. He was also appointed as ‘vanam-manam’ district coordinator and environmental wing convener of Jana Vignana Vedika.