Report of workshop on Environment Education Projects & Bioinformatics on 10^th & 11^th Sept. 2007.

Environment education is a new subject introduced for higher secondary classes i.e. 11^th & 12^th standards for all faculties viz. Science, Arts, & Commerce. For partial fulfillment of this subject the students are supposed to complete a project related to Environment Education. The topics for these projects can be selected from various issues related to nature, & social environment.

As students & teachers find it difficult to work on such problems, it was proposed to take guidance from eminent environmentalists who are highly experienced in this field. Dr. Sasikumar Menon, Director T.D.M. Laboratories, Chembur, Dr. Goldin Quadros, Education Officer of World Wildlife Fund, Mumbai, & Mr. Anand Pendharkar, President of N.G.O. SPROUT was requested to guide the teachers. Thus, a one day workshop on this subject was organized on 10^th Sept. 2007.

Bioinformatics is a new topic included in Biology-Paper II for XII standard of Higher Secondary syllabus from academic year 2007-08. It is an advanced technical subject & all Biology teachers needed proper guidance in teaching the same. Hence another one day workshop on Bioinformatics was organized on 11^th Sept. 2007. Dr. Kiran Paria, our staff member from Zoology Department, was selected as expert for this workshop.

For both these workshops Dr. Mrs. M.K. Pejaver, Principal, B.N.Bandodkar College was Convener, & Dr. Mrs. S.P.Bendigeri, Supervisor, Jr. College, was co-convener. All the staff members of Jr. College & the staff members of Biology Department in particular, were actively involved in making this workshop a grand success. Prof. Kale & his staff from I.T. Department provided valuable inputs & help.

DAY ONE: 10^TH SEPTEMBER 2007

Jr. College staff members & nonteaching staff of Zoology Department assembled at Thorale Bajirao Peshwe Sabhagriha at 8.00 AM. The registration of the participants started at 9.00 AM on payment of Rs. 100/=. Total 42 teachers from different colleges in & around Thane city & Kalyan, participated in this workshop. A few were from Mumbai too. The workshop was inaugurated by lighting the holy lamp by Principal Dr. Mrs. M. K. Pejaver at 10am. In her inaugural address she explained the need of such workshop.

Our first resource person was Mr. Anand Pendharkar. He is BSc (Zoology), Mumbai University, and MSc (Wildlife Sciences) from Institute of Wildlife Sciences at Dehradoon. He is a young, enthusiastic Founder member and president of N.G.O. SPROUT (Society for promotion of research, outdoors, urbanity, training and social welfare. He is also a life member of Bombay Natural History Society and member of Zoo Outreach Organization (ZOO) and Chiroptera conservation and information network of South Asia (CCINSA), International Zoo Education Association (South Asia Network). He has won many awards from various distinguished institutions in India and abroad.

Anand believes in constant interaction with the participants instead of giving a lecture. He used many innovative, thought provoking ideas. For example he distributed chits with different words on each chit and asked the participants to express their positive and negative responses to the word; this way he taught one of the ways to identify the problem for the projects for environment education.

He also gave interesting information about flying mammal, Bat, and also about insects like mosquito, housefly etc. and explained about intricate web of life on earth.

A short tea break was taken at 11.30am.

After the tea break Anand continued for two hours more. At the end there was Question & Answer session, during which Anand satisfied all the queries of the participants.

Lunch break was taken at 1.30 AM. Everybody had lunch at college canteen.

Dr. Goldin Quadros was the next resource person. Dr. Goldin did BSc. (Zoology), MSc by research (Zoology), & PhD (Zoology) from Mumbai University, from B.N. Bandodkar College. He is Education Officer in World Wildlife Fund for Nature, Mumbai. He is editor of Panda Bulletin & Nisarga Varta, published by W.W.F. He leads number of nature trails all over India. He is specialist in conducting projects of Sustainable Development.

He talked about Education in Sustainable Development. He defined sustainable development as follows:

“Sustainable development is that development which meets the needs of the PRESENT without compromising the ability of FUTURE generations to meet their own needs.” (By World Commission on Environment & Development, 1987).

In order to simplify & explain this concept he made smaller groups of participants & told each group to discuss certain chronic problems or issues in society, such as:

· Traffic problem in Mumbai & use of high technology for road development,

· Dumping grounds in Mumbai,

· Globalization

The idea was to find solutions through discussions, stimulating minds of each participant. He further suggested that for any project one should consider 5 components:

· Knowledge,

· Local issues,

· Skills,

· Perspectives,

· Values.

The tea break was taken at 3.00PM.

Dr. Sasikumar Menon was the last resource person of the day. He is PhD in Endocrinology, & worked in Bombay Natural History Society for many years for up gradation of environment. He is Director, T.D.M. Laboratory, Chembur.

Dr. Menon’s lecture was designed systematically with six steps. These steps covered:

· Need of the project,

· Constraints,

· Approach to the project,

· Roles of different entities in school/college,

· Writing of the project,

· Evaluation of the project.

He further suggested many books for reference.

At the end of the day, all the participating teachers were saturated with information & everybody expressed satisfaction with the workshop.

DAY TWO: 11^TH SEPTEMBER 2007

As per schedule registration of the participants took place between 9.00 AM & 10.00 AM. Total 23 teachers from different colleges registered for this workshop.

Dr. Kiran Paria was our resource person for the workshop on Bioinformatics. Dr. Paria is MSc (Zoology), PhD (Zoology), & at present, is pursuing MBA. He has keen interest in Bioinformatics.

According to Dr. Paria the concept of Bioinformatics is combined knowledge of basics of Biology, basics of computer, database & its real world application. Bioinformatics is genomic, proteomic revolution. The ultimate goal of Bioinformatics is to uncover the wealth of biological information hidden in the mass of sequence, structure of different proteins.

To understand these concepts better, he gave a list of DNA sequences (Sense strand) list, & nucleotide codon chart. He taught the participants to form the amino acid sequence that leads to form particular protein. It appears like a game, but it showed the participants how difficult subject can be made interesting & easy. He also gave full names of all short forms commonly used in computer usage such as:

· www - World Wide Web,

· GB - Gigabyte,

· NCBI – National Centre for Biotech Information,

· BLAST- Basic Local Alignment Search Tool.

Thus, his presentation on Bioinformatics was both extremely knowledgeable & power packed. Every one was satisfied as all the doubts too were clarified.

Lunch break was taken at 1.30 PM. This was followed by feedback session.

Miss Clara, a teacher from St. John Baptist High School & Jr. College of Science expressed that teachers from smaller Jr. Colleges were in real need of such guidance & this workshop will go long way to improve teaching in these subjects.

A valedictory function was organized at 2.30 PM. Prof. Punam Singhvi, a well-known environmentalist & Founder President of the N.G.O. Hariyali, Thane, was invited to preside. In his speech Prof. Singhvi pointed out the importance of Environmental Education being imparted to young students, which may lead to overall improvement in environment. He suggested a few new innovative projects in social environment for teachers & students.

The participants were given certificates of participation on both days. The vote of thanks concluded the workshop.