This morning's assembly saw the finale of this years Precious Earth Quiz. The quiz has been a regular feature at Isha Home School for the past 2 years with monthly installments taking place throughout the second term. The Precious Earth Quiz originally started as an attempt to familiarise the children of IHS with recent developments in the areas of environment and ecology using articles from a wide range of daily newspapers. Given the overwhelming volume of 'negative' environmental news that we are exposed to, constantly reminding us of the mess we, as a race, have created and the dangerous path that this mess is leading us down, it is always a challenge as to how to balance this with some 'positive' news highlighting signs of change and hope for this precious earth of ours.

This term we made a slightly more ambitious attempt to broaden the scope of the children's knowledge. We included summarised information relating to various endangered species across the earth, along with information regarding a number of international NGOs and the systems and programs they have introduced, in order to facilitate the conservation of these species.

The beginning of term saw the introduction of a weekly birdwatching club for those children that were interested, culminating in an exclusive birdwatching session for the participants of the quiz. This trip into the forest allowed us to introduce an audio round where bird calls needed to be identified. The sharp rise in the observations and awareness of the children came as a very pleasant suprise to all of us teachers.

We decided to use this Precious Earth Quiz session as a means of broadening the awareness levels among those who were not birdwatching regulars. The call of certain birds were used to indicate whether an answer was correct, incorrect or only partly correct.The Eurasian Cockoo was used for correct answers, the drumming sound created by the male snipe as it rubs its feathers together was used to indicate a wrong answer, and when an answer was only partially correct, the Common Hawk-cuckoo (or Brain fever bird) called out! That apart, we had the Coppersmith Barbet keep the 15-sec time for answering a question!

Students were divided up according to their Sports Houses. In the end, Chola House took the lead and was presented the rolling trophy.

All of these efforts are part of an Isha Home School Environmental Education plan commited to creating a deep sense of awareness and sensitivity within the children about environmental issues. The plan also aims to foster a natural tendancy towards being alert and observant about nature and the environment that surrounds them, the flora and fauna (or absence of it). The 'birds and the bees' so to speak.

Another aspect of this plan will be the introduction, in the near future, of a vegetable growing program empowering the children to have access to safe, healthy, chemical free food in an environmentally friendly way. We hope that these efforts will blossom into a multitude of possibilities for the children's future. A future where they will naturally stand up in defence of other forms of life with which we share this planet, and become spontaneously aware of the best way to use the limited resources available on the planet and to do what it takes to ensure sustained life on earth for generations to come.