Media Release

Mangaluru, Jul 29: ‘Care for our common home’ and creating ecologically sensitive youth have been the major objectives of St Aloysius PU College. In this regard, the Centre for Environmental Concern (CEC) in collaboration with Eco Club, organized the Eco-week' where students under the leadership of CEC members participated in various ecology based events.

The Eco week celebrations created awareness on various environmental issues and promoted ways to conserve nature, and to increase the greenery.

The Eco-week was inaugurated by the principal, Fr Clifford Sequeira SJ, campus minister Fr Sujay Daniel SJ and the faculty. Fr Clifford congratulated the CEC members for being sensitive towards environmental causes and coming forward to contribute towards the mother earth.

The participants took a pledge to conserve the nature by casting their thumb impression. Fr Clifford inspired the students to pursue this cause and serve on different platforms to safeguard the environment.

A video clip promoting the message of effective measures to conserve our mother nature was released. A planting drive was also held. An awareness drive on 'waste segregation' was also conducted. CEC members visited all the batches and demonstrated the effective methods of segregating the wastes. ‘Eco-Splash’ - an artistic activity where the students presented their skills through painting on areca plates on the topic 'monsoon magic' was also held.

Students were made to realize the immediate challenges on environment conservation through an in depth research presentation by Dr Xavier Savarimuthu SJ, research director, St Joseph’s College, Bengaluru on ‘Climate Change’. He spoke about the consequences of climate change on humans such as reduction in freshwater availability to humans and how the growing population explosion is exploiting the natural resources. He urged students to come up with solutions to overcome climate change and conserve the natural resources.

A field visit was conducted to a butterfly park in Belavai and a medicinal and herbal garden, Soans farm Moodabidri, to appreciate the biodiversity. A workshop on surveying energy in the college campus was held. The workshop mainly focused on the recent studies on exhaustible resources and even topics like energy, water, biodiversity; impact of climate change on fresh water resources and plastic.

At the end of the workshop, teams collated their research, conducted group discussions and shared their conclusions. Brajesh Sharma, 'the cyclist' who promoted ecological causes through extensive cycling spoke about the concerns of the environment and highlighted on 'single-use of plastic ' and 'organic farming '.

The event filled ‘Eco-week’ was indeed fantastic learning curve for all involved.