Reflection

              Taking care of a life is something commendable. This is what each of the eco club members have managed to do for a year. We did face a lot of struggles including fights among ourselves and also when our plants were not healthy sometimes. Some of us would forget to water the plants regularly and the others would forget to bring their plants out of the cabins before the weekend. When the leaders reminded us to do it, few of us got angry and annoyed. That's when the fight began, and a couple of members were pushed out of the Eco club. We got some of our other friends to join later.       
               However, over time, we learned how to respect each others' feelings and how to work as a team. Furthermore, we actually got to know more about how to be 'principled', since watering our plants was something we had to do without fail in order to keep our plants alive.
               Most of  us have heard of those quotes that say 'Plant one tree a day' and other similar ones. But I never really took a step to plant a tree everyday. This CAS experience helped me take care of plants for quite a long duration. It may not be a great achievement. But I believe I have supported the environment by taking this baby step towards keeping our planet healthy.
               I've developed this affection towards plants these days only because of this activity. The best part of this experience is that the inside of our school looks much greener and healthier right now. I will always remember to take care of my surrounding simply by growing plants, just like we did in our Eco-club. Had I not participated in this club, I wouldn't have begun loving nature...
             

Journal 5.12: Handing over the eco club

      Now that our juniors have entered IB DP, we thought of handing over our eco club to our juniors. So, we had a meeting with them and asked the interested students to give their names for this participation. We then allotted each of them one plant to take care of. Also, we briefed them on how to take care of them and how to place them outside before every weekend so that they don't dry out in the cabins without enough sunlight and water.
       The DP faculty helped us arrange a ceremony to hand over this club. One of the juniors hosted the ceremony and our CAS coordinator Rolf sir gave a short speech about the work that had been done in order to bring light to this activity. He also talked about how important growing plants in your vicinity is.
        Then, the Chief Academic Officer, Dr. Sonali Geed gave all the members of the eco club certificates and appreciated us for having brought up a good tradition in our school!
        After the certificates were given, the ceremony was closed and all our juniors took incharge of their respective plants and carried them to the cabins. It was pretty hard to give away what we took care of for almost a year. But to know that a tradition that we began, is going to continue forever is makes us feel proud!

Journal 5.11: Bringing our plants back 'home'!

We're finally back from the winter break. First thing today morning, we went to the front gate and picked up all our plants and put them back in the cabins. Most of them were healthy and some had withering brown leaves. But they were still in good condition. We added the organic fertilizer to all the plants and put them some of them on the automated water system that one of my friends made for our plants. He's working on expanding the system so that all the plants can be watered regularly by this system.
      The 'Go pachai' team is taking good care of their plants. In fact, their peace lily plants bloomed into beautiful white flowers before our plants did. We are proud to have expanded our club to the Primany year program students as well.

Journal 5.10 : More plants and plans...

The Boston fern is healthy without any brown or yellow leaves. Also, few more people joined the Eco club this month. We now have a big team! In the meeting held this month, we came up with ideas of installing plants in the dining hall and also creating a plant aquarium! We discussed the pros and cons of the ideas and ended up deciding that both the ideas would work. So as per the tradition, we split into groups and started making proposals to give to the management. We also bought a few more aloe vera plants and jate plants this month to replace the few that died. Before leaving school for the winter break, we took all our plants to the parking lot at our school so that the gardener who comes to school every day could water our plants too.

Journal 5.9 : Expanding beyond...

Good news! My boston fern is back to form. It has no more brown leaves, it looks green and healthy, just like it was when it was bought. We also bought 2 creeper plants and kept them next to the bridge. The terrace garden plan is still going through the planning process. About the paper wastage reduction, we are making the proposal to handover to the management. In the meeting we had this month, we thought of expanding the Eco club and spreading the awareness of the importance of indoor air purification plants to our juniors too. So with the permission of the management, we held a meeting with the fifth graders and talked about the Eco club and also gave each classroom one Peace lilly plant (an amazing air purifier) after seeing their high levels of enthusiasm. We made a presentation and made sure that all them were engaged through out the meeting. Much to our surprise, one of the sections in fifth grade made their own club called "Go Pachai" (Pachai means green, in Tamil) which is basically their own Eco club. They made small objects like pencil holders with news paper. Believe it or not, those pencil holders looked like they were made by professionals! They came to us and explained that plastic is harmful to life and so they are working towards replacing plastic with something harmless, like news paper. That's when we thought of hosting something called the "D-day" (Dustbin day). After asking the coordinators of fifth grade and DP, each one of us went to one class room and made dustbins out of news paper along with all of them. We rolled sheets of newspaper into long pipes and stuck the pipes together to form the body of the dustbin. We then stuck the whole thing on a piece of cardboard and shaped the cardboard so that it would be a perfect base for the body of the dustbin. All the sticking was done with regular glue. And guess what? My class made the biggest dustbin!

Journal 5.8 : New ideas!

Apart from watering the plants and bringing them out of the cabins for some direct sunlight, we had a meeting with the all the members of the Eco club. We discussed how we could take this activity further. Our ideas included terrace gardening, growing creepers, recycling waste paper instead of burning them, reducing wastage at our school and also buying new plants for the Eco club. We split into groups to execute these small ideas that struck us. I joined the team which took charge of looking into to why they are burning paper near our school. A few of my friends and I went to security officer and inquired him. We then came to know that recycling of paper didn't take place because the school is too far from the main city. Then, we thought of using waste paper for other purposes instead of burning or recycling them. We came up with ideas of making paper bags and other similar things.

Journal 5.7 : Routine followed this month...

Today, we shifted all the plants from the respective cabins to the bridge so that they could receive enough sunlight through the weekend. We followed this routine through out the month and observed healthy growth of almost all of our plants. However, my plant, the boston fern had a few brown leaves. I then realized that it was high time I add the fertilizer. We also took the bulbs from plants that were showing stagnant growth into new pots with soil that was a better mixture of red soil, clay, peat and also organic matter. We cut off the brown leaves and added some soil on the roots that were popping out of the surface in some of the plants.

Journal 5.6 : Time to add fertilizers

Today we, added a handful of fertilizer to each plant just like we did last month. We also moved some of the plants back to the bridge where the plants are directly exposed to sunlight for 2 days. We have to make sure to take them back to the cabins so that they don't begin showing poor growth.

Journal 5.5 : The unexpected...

The plant allotted to me, Alovera, showed very poor growth for the past few days and finally stopped growing at all. This was probably due to over watering or exposure under direct sunlight for too long. It could have been a consequence of using the wrong type of soil as well. The other plant allotted to me, the boston fern is in good condition. 

Journal 5.4 : Taking extra care

Despite the fact that we watered them regularly, some of the plants like tulsi, and the peace lily showed poor growth. We then tried putting them back in the teachers' cabins where the temperature is not to cold and there no direct sunlight. The peace lily, fortunately, came back to form while tulsi is taking some time to come back to shape. The teachers were excited and pleased to have a plant in their cabin. They promised to take good care of them everyday. We will visit them once a week to add fertilizers and trim the plants in order to keep them in good health.

Duration : 2 hours 

Journal 5.3 : Tiny slip...

Today, we assigned one plant for each of us to take care of. I took in charge of the spider plant. Also, I will research on how to take care of each one of the plants and help my friends learn as well.
We watered the plants regularly till date. But much to our surprise, most of the plants were dried out and looked like they were going to wilt in no time. We then realized that it was all because of the air conditioner in the room, and due to the lack of soil. The mother soil of most of the plants was different from the soil that we had at school. So one of our team mates arranged for a drop of the required soil today afternoon, at school. Carrying that big sack of soil all the way upstairs from the reception was quite a challenge. Using a shovel, we then transferred the soil to the pots, and also removed the moss that had grown on the surface over just a few days. We also removed the dried leaves and rocks in the soil. Lastly, we watered them before keeping them next to direct sunlight on the bridge.

Duration : 2 hours 

Journal 5.2 : Part 2!

We stepped into the second stage of our activity, buying the saplings and planting them at the teachers' cabins at school. We kept them watered and then put them into pots made up of coconut waste which don't cause water leakage. Transferring the saplings from their covers to pots were pretty hard though. Every Friday, we will spray the fertilizer and water the plants, each one on of us are assigned to take care of. The plants we installed :

Tulsi

Aloe vera 

Boston fern 

Spider plant

Snake plant

Monstera 

Asparagus

Ivy plant

Peace lily 

Adiantum 

Duration : 1 hour 

Reflection 5

This experience was definitely one of a kind. I got to know more about air purifying plants and how beneficial they can be in today's world. Talking to each of the parents on the day of the cricket fest helped me understand more about what I was actually explaining. Towards the end of the day, my tone became more persuasive, and I inculcated the skill of communicating in such a convincing manner. Also, some of the parents asked us why we were doing this, and if it was a part of our curriculum. That way, we got to talk about IB DP and how CAS is an important part of it! And again, just like in every CAS experience, we worked in a team and mastered the skill of coordination...

Journal 5.1 : Preparation...

Displaying them.

Posters!

Concentration...

We finally came to an idea of spreading awareness of using air purifying plants (on the day of the cricket fest), instead of selling them directly at the fist the session itself. So we began making our CAS proposal for this CAS experience. Our main aim was to let people know that plants can do a better job than expensive purifiers in reducing the air pollution and the concentration of toxic chemical vapors in air. We then got approval signatures from the CAS coordinator and the DP coordinator and began making posters. We wrote down the benefits of each plant and made them look attractive and colorful. Gathering the entire team and working together was quite a challenge this time as everybody was a little off track. However, we still finished our posters on time! The next day morning, we put up our posters around the school and took printouts of the information about every plant. Once the parents started arriving at the gallery, we split into pairs and went to each of them to talk about the project and also each plant in specific.

After which, we asked them to remark us. Fortunately, they liked our ideas a lot and asked for further information and contact details as well! 

Duration : 10 hours