The Green Rangers...Greenline team meets the Josephites!

Josephites - The Green Rangers!

-Master Donnel Shibu and Ms. Sunita D’Souza

St. Joseph’s High School,

9^th July 2014

On 9th July, 2014 the eco-friendly Josephites had the first session of the Greenline Project for the year 2014-2015. The session began at 9.30 a.m. The GreenLine team comprised Kaustubh, Sonia and Shruti who were given a warm welcome by the Josephites. The monitors from Stds. IV-X took the lead on our green adventure with their presence and with their thinking caps, thinking green! The theme for this year is 'Tree Rangers'! Rev. Fr. Godfrey Desa (Principal) gave the Josephites a green pep talk to kickstart our adventure with nature, our friend.  Mrs. Pavita, Mrs. Cleopatra, Mrs. Saluja and Ms. Sunita along with the students forming the Green Brigade were ready to begin this new venture!

The session began with a prayer invoking God's blessings. Ms. Sonia conducted a session titled 'Who Am I?' drawing the attention of the students to the different kinds of trees, shrubs, herbs, vines and creepers, identification of trees, their size and shape, trunks, colour, pattern, texture, flowers, fruits, cones, different types of barks like flaking bark, fissured bark, smooth bark and thorny bark. The students were shown pictures of simple and compound leaves. The Greenline Team conducted an interesting game based on the kinds of leaves. The students were escorted by the Greenline Team into the 'World of Trees' and were introduced to the city's oldest trees like the Mahogany, Banyan, Gorakh Chinch and Boababi. They were taught how to plant trees, and the characteristics of certain new species of trees.

 

Ms. Sonia conducted an interesting quiz for the students who participated enthusiastically. The quiz was based on trees located in Mumbai City. The students guessed the names of the trees based on the sample leaves flashed on the screen, Both the teams performed extremely well. The students were told a few basic things that a Tree Ranger should do, to preserve, protect and love nature!

Ms. Shruti.then gave the Josephites a plan of action to start asap! She gave the students some challenging activities to complete. She briefed them on the steps needed to be taken to map trees by preparing an outline map of the school with the trees situated in the school campus. She suggested that the students take samples of the leaves of the trees in the school campus while recording their names, measure the girth, identify whether they are flowering or fruiting trees and record the trees visited in the tabular format presented and enlist these trees on the map. She encouraged the students to organise an exhibition and come up with their own ideas. 

Ms. Shruti then highlighted the pointers that would be taken for consideration while discerning and deciding the Best Green Awards at the end of the academic year. There would be one Green Champ selected from each school.Master Atharva Chaturvedi, the school head boy thanked the Greenline Team members and assured them that we would strive to live up to the promise that Mother Earth expects of us, by proving we are true 'Tree Rangers'. Some leaders of the higher classes then came forward with ideas that could be implemented to think green, see green and act green! The session ended at 10.30 a.m. with everyone present feeling energised, eco-sensitised to take on the mantle of 'Green Rangers'. 

Mother Earth, your 'Green Rangers' are here, to make you smile! Back in action! The action starts now!