The Green School Project 2.0: Education Empowered to a Greener Tomorrow

The Green School project 2.0 is an innovative joint initiative of the Tata Steel Foundation (TSF) and TERI. Its mission is to encourage critical thinking, inter-disciplinary learnings, and hard-core appreciation of environment conservation values among students studying in schools that are running in Tata Steel operational areas. By integrating such challenges as energy, water, forest & biodiversity, and waste into climate change and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), The Green School project encourages young people to fight in the interest of the welfare of our planet through the acceptance of behaviour changes.

At present, the program has direct impact on students and teachers of selected schools in six Indian states- Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. The project further reaches the lives of partner parent-teacher associations (PTAs), school administration members and local communities. It works towards enhancing the skills of middle school students through activity-based teaching-learning programs with a view to generate awareness about environment and sustainable development issues.

A series of teacher training sessions and workshops were conducted, based on transformative learning and collective approach to develop ideas for green practices. Resource materials were prepared to guide the teachers in making learning and teaching environment-friendly, which led to behavior change and student engagement. Having had seven triumphant phases implemented in association with the Tata Steel Foundation, this initiative has built a strong foundation in the field of environmental awareness among school children. The achievement of the project brings an additional load where an amendment is suggested to upgrade the implementation to the empowerment level. The Green School project 2.0, is designed such that will increase the scope of influence by adopting green skills training under a sustainability vision. Some crucial elements of the previous versions shall also be preserved in the direction of consolidation and reinforcement of project footprint.