In its drive to enhance the sense of moral purpose of its students in protecting the environment and sustaining its natural resources, CMS took multiple approaches to involve young minds in ecological projects in 2016. At the monthly reflection meetings of environment coordinators of all the twenty CMS campuses, students from the campus Eco clubs designed campaigns for including a large number of students and community members in raising awareness. The most outstanding efforts this year have been the students’ campaign on addressing Air Pollution and identifying the steps that every citizen can take to effect a positive change, efforts to save both water and electricity, and to engage in proper waste disposal, both within their school campus as well as in the neighbourhood, thereby contributing their share to the national Swachh Bharat campaign. Students made many efforts towards educating families and the wider community on the need for a clean and green Diwali. CMS campuses continued to organise Assembly sessions on environmental issues in 2016, including sharing environmental articles to enhance the consciousness and understanding of students and faculty.
CMS continued its collaboration with the Centre for Environment Education in 2016, both through its Ahmedabad Head Office as well as the Lucknow Regional Office, engaging students regularly in projects on water, biodiversity, tree plantations, organic farming, composting, making herbarium and terrarium, etc. Collaboration with NEDA to save electricity has been another enriching joint project. We also collaborated with Prithvi Innovations to value healthy food habits and to save food.
Various CMS campuses have won outstanding awards in 2016 (and 2015), such as the Wipro Earthian Award of Rs. 1 lakh (both in 2015 and again in 2016) from the Wipro Chairman Mr. Azim Premji for a water-conservation project at the CMS Kanpur Road campus; the Paryavaran Mitra Puraskar awards and Paryavaran Dronacharya awards to teachers of CMS RDSO campus (Ms Musarrat Fatima and of CMS Jopling Road campus (Ms Anupam Johari); the Vanyajeev Dronachrya Award from the Indian Centre for Wildlife and Environmental Studies in South Asia Region (ICWESSAR) Jaipur, to the environment project coordinator at CMS Aliganj I campus Mr Kailash Kesarwani; and the Paryavaran Ratan Rajat Padak from the ICWESSAR to Shyam Agarwal, student of CMS Aliganj-I to recognize their sensitivity towards the environment, changes in climate and environmental conservation. A documentary film Gauraiya: The Great Indian Sparrow made by students of CMS Mahanagar campus was shortlisted and screened at the prestigious 7th National Science Film Festival in Kolkata in mid February 2017.
CMS Gomti Nagar II Campus hosted its biennial International Environmental Olympiad in December 2015, engaging students from overseas and within India, and it brought outstanding environmental entrepreneurs and activists to inspire students and the teaching fraternity on such vital issues such as climate change, sustainable consumption, alternate sources of energy, organic farming, etc. The next one will be in late 2017.
Children organized activities on numerous international days in 2016 such as the World Environment Day, World Forestry Day, Earth Day, UN World Water Day, Van Mahotsav and Ground Water Week, World Ozone Day, etc. The International Year of the Pulses was also celebrated in 2016 as a campaign for educating and raising awareness on healthy food habits.