Good day Green Pals,

We all have been united through Eco-generation, I begin my first article with a friendship call that should grow as green and healthy as the green cause we all stand for.

I wish to know from each one of you whether any country has Environmental science or Earth Science as a core subject in their education from Primary school. If so I wish to know more from such gifted people who can share ideas to enable us to build on their experience.

When we all have languages, Maths, Science, Social studies etc built into our regular studies, I find it strange that the educationalists have not found it necessary to bring in environmental science as a core subject. When the world faces a question on sustainability of life in future, can there be anything more important than the study of environmental science from Grade I, if not earlier?

If you all find this acceptable, can we all take this as a demand in every forum we are able to voice our concerns regarding Enviro-care? While there are many environmental organizations and schools teaching green concepts, the staggering 7 billion world population can have a quick solution if the awareness reaches every school going child. By reaching out to such grass-root levels, we can swiftly raise the Green pals community to a billion plus!.

Like all the battles fought in the evolvement of human civilization, the journey to reach a civilized green community is still far away and it is going to take many years of hard work to reach the goals. We need to quickly build an army of eco-warriors and this is what made me come up with this query to know if any country has already taken this lead to make Earth science from primary school level.

In doing this, I am not suggesting to overload the system with more and more exams. Perhaps we can reduce the focus on some other subjects like historical events and increase the time and content of Earth Science. Apart from educating students to plant trees, reduce consumption of water, electricity and other resources, they can be trained on importance of reducing food waste, using bicycles, community recycling, knowledge of pollutants from different industries so the students discourage use of products from industries that add to global warming, scientific farming methods, avoiding harmful chemicals, composting etc. It is so sad that despite such grave dangers to sustainability of life, the world is lagging far too behind in Enviro-care.

For example, in my neighborhood, Sharjah authorities have introduced a new efficient means of waste segregation bins for enabling recycling and less waste ending in landfills. The authorities are campaigning to spread awareness by different means and obviously must be spending a lot of money. If Environmental care is a subject at school, the message would have reached all students and public with much lesser efforts.

Kind regards to all green pals.

Neha Swaminathan.