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Students Projects |
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Feedback/queries : raghu.velankar@gmail.com; sanskriti.menon@ceeindia.org Student's Projects on environment of Pune Rationale Collecting relevant information - Environment education has now become a compulsory component of the secondary, higher secondary and under graduate curriculum. This can be put to advantage to generate relevant information on the status of the environment of the city as a civil society initiative. Some time back, during the rainy season of 2006, deteriorating condition of the roads in the city had become a talk of the town. A senior politician gave statement that number of pot holes on the roads was comparatively less than the earlier year. This was immediately followed by newspapers flooding with letters from the citizens criticizing the politician. Majority of the letters expressed that situation of the road was rather worsened than earlier year. Unfortunately, as a matter of fact whether the situation of roads was better or worse than the earlier year was based on individual perception. None of the parties, politician or citizens writing to the newspapers had quantitative information to substantiate their claims. Now consider a scenario wherein some undergraduate students select a stretch of particular length, so to say one kilometer, of some important road in the city, for example Karve Road. They count and measure (length, breadth and depth) pot holes in this stretch. Also the students interview frequent users (auto rickshaw drivers) of the road to know their opinion regarding situation and management of the road. This kind of exercise as a student's activity appears simple but is worth doing. Had it been done in case of the case mentioned earlier, it would have helped understand 'on ground' situation. Such activity repeated over three years would help develop a comparative data which in turn would help assess and weigh statement of either party (politician mentioning less number and general citizens mentioning worsened situation compared to the earlier year). Database on the status of environment - On the similar lines of the example mentioned earlier (situation of the roads in the city), information could be generated on various topics of concern like stray dogs, importance of roadside trees, sewage, traffic, hills in the city as green islands etc. Given that Pune city has around 150 undergraduate colleges and schools, each educational institute employing their students in generating information on the status of environment is a worth try. Developing biodiversity register of the city as a follow up of the BD Act - India enacted the Biological Diversity Act in April 2002. As per the act every local body, gram panchayat in the rural context and nagar parishad or Municipal Corporation in the urban context needs to prepare a biodiversity register of the area under its jurisdiction. National Biodiversity Authority, the apex body set up under the same act to look after biodiversity management in the country, has made available a recommended format of biodiversity register of a locality. The biodiversity register called People's Biodiversity Register (PBR) is an important tool of natural resource management of the area. Following are some suggested projects/themes that can be useful in developing PBR of Pune city. |