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India continues to be rich in biodiversity. With better nutrition and health care, the life expectancy has gone up by almost 3 times since post independence. But the environment in India faces several challenges today. With poverty, low literacy levels and an ever-increasing population, the development and environmental challenges are enormous. While the population increase puts pressure on resources, the pressure of 'development' is perhaps even greater and the younger generation of our country will face an uphill task to tackle the same.

Thus environmental educators face stiff challenges, mainly the one about bringing awareness of the need that the country needs to develop in less wasteful ways in the current paradigm, apart from the obvious ones of environmental management & conservation. There are considerable initiatives in this field in India today. One such notable institute that has taken up the challenge of putting Environment Education on the agenda of education decision makers, is Bharati Vidyapeeth's Institute of Environmental Education & Research (BVIEER), Pune. 

With the objectives of strengthening environment education in the formal school system, a World Bank aided study was undertaken by the Indian government since 1999. Apart from Maharashtra, seven other states namely, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Goa, Jammu and Kashmir, Orissa, Punjab and Uttaranchal, were selected for the pilot implementation of this project. The project was designed in 2 phases. In the first phase, a critical content analysis was undertaken in order to find out the status of environmental content in the textbooks currently being used in the schools. On the basis of the findings, the second phase of pilot implementation was designed, to ensure that environmental education is covered through infusion in existing subjects and not as a separate subject. The eight states were selected for the project on the basis of their geographical spread, existing environmental content in textbooks and willingness of the state to participate in the exercise. Eight hundred schools in these states (100 schools in each state) were selected for the initiative.

Under this study, BVIEER did a two-year content analysis of more than 1,800 textbooks from all over the country, studying their handling of environmental subjects. Textbooks in General Science, Geography and Languages were analysed to assess the environment education inputs. The BVIEER content analysis identified 99 environmental concepts including Natural Resources, Biodiversity, Pollution, People and Environment, Energy etc. Each concept was assessed for accuracy, relevance to the text, appropriateness to the age-group, consistency, bias etc. Once the matrix was complete it was easy to identify the lacunae or 'gaps' in the curriculum.

While most of the Geography textbooks did discuss the importance of the atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere in detail, and focused on the greenhouse effect, ozone depletion etc, it was found that there is little effort to interlink environmental concepts and real life experiences. This meant that most students learned the subject by rote and did not identify or believe in the cause of environmental protection. There was a serious absence of locale-specific information and several gaps in the appreciation of ecosystems, their structure, functions, uses, degradation and conservation. There was hardly any information on sustainable lifestyles and what individuals can and should do for environmental preservation as a part of personal day-to-day activity.

Several simple environmental topics such as the variety of plant and animal species in the world, in India and in each state, did not find appropriate representation in the curriculum. Very often, information provided was outdated. For instance, DDT in most books is mentioned as a common pesticide, even though commercial production and use of DDT is banned in India. Comprehension and the will to teach these topics seemed dismal amongst most teachers. Most put this down due to lack of time, lack of environmentally relevant educational material, lack of institutional and parental support and a host of varied explanations.

The BVIEER team subsequently suggested changes in the textbooks. Dr Erach Bharucha, director of BVIEER stated and I quote, "Based on the analysis we made of the textbooks, the textbooks of standards 6, 7 and 8 have been redrafted in eight states of the country." In Maharashtra, BVIEER actually sat with the textbook writers to bring about changes in the curriculum.

For the pilot implementation of Phase II, textbooks of science, social sciences and languages at middle school level (standards VI to VIII) were targeted. The concerned textbooks in these states have been modified to strengthen the infusion of environmental concepts and have been introduced in the selected project schools in the eight states. The project also involved orientation for all the major stakeholders. This was done through workshops for the Educational Administrators, concerned officials of the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) Textbook Bureaus and state education departments, besides school principals and parents of students. At the same time, workshops were also conducted for textbook writers and illustrators, where experts from the field of environment education provided inputs and helped the writers revise the existing textbooks.

Model textbooks have thus been created by each state for standards 6, 7 and 8. The 'good' lessons that need to be replicated across states were retained and the poor or incorrect concepts and identified gaps that need to be addressed in future textbooks were corrected. At a larger level, there is increased interaction between textbook writers, NGOs and government bureaus. The end result -- more than 100 schools in the state of Maharashtra, and 700 more around India, now have a syllabus that aims to improve children's understanding and knowledge of the environment.

Dr Erach Bharucha, a surgeon by profession, an ace photographer and a conservationist by heart, was aptly chosen for the Green Teacher's Award in the Vasundhara Film Festival held this year.