FIRST INDIAN BIODIVERSITY CONGRESS 2010

Apart from the excitement of a new year waiting round the corner, the last week of December 2010 also meant adding another bag of  memorable experience to our beloved school life. Myself and 3 of my colleagues were given the opportunity to represent our school (Holy Angels ISC School) in the first Indian Biodiversity Congress(IBC) held in Trivandrum along with representatives  from many other schools and colleges as well.The frustrations of the 2nd term exams were just beginning to wear off and we hardly had a week ahead of us to complete the work on our exhibits.After much hurry-burry we were able to come up with a rather well made model of a vertical farming structure(farmscraper) and a representation of the 

general natural vegetation of the world.

Natural vegetation of the world(students from L-R- Shahnaz,Rudra,Charutha,Najma)

Models of all 6 continents except that of Antarctica were cut out on thick pieces of thermocol  and were painted.It depicted the major grasslands(prairies,pampas,velds etc),deserts(sahara,atacama etc), rain  forests, deciduous,coniferous forests etc which are spread over the continents.We had to have a tough search among the shops to find the matching models of the  trees and grasses.We were successful in the hunt;but the demerit  as pointed out by some was that it was made of plastic.Initially people were reluctant to wait and listen but later on there were many students who were excited to see a 3D version of something rather boring that they had learned in geography and happily recollected it;and elders especially professors were interested in testing our knowledge on this in several ways.With some people we even entered into lengthy discussions about world geography,the climatic conditions that influenced their vegetation and so on.

Vertical Farming model

The farm-scraper was painstakingly constructed with glass and the surrounding structures with thick pieces of thermocol and it rightfully drew large crowds,some keen to know about this rather new technique ofcultivation and some with a great mood to fire up an argument.One such project was successfully conducted by the Columbia university in the premises of lake Michigan.Built in glass the structure drew its power mainly from solar energy,the leftover water is recycled and sent back to the lake thereby minimising pollution and wastage of water.Some visitors argued that this sort of entirely artificial cultivation can bring in more of disadvantages than the positives. But we clarified our stand that we dont really promote this right now,but that our aim was to let people know that such a method is available incase if in future we run severely out of land for agriculture.

In the end we realised that we had actually begun to face any sort of questions smartly and successfully.The kind of feedbacks we got,especially from foreign dignitaries and experts,were very encouraging.We were even more happy when reports and photos of our exhibits were published in the Young World and in the local newspapers.The fact that we had to put up our stalls  from morning till night for 5 consecutive days was a bit tiring.But the fun filled events that took place during the days made up for this and made us longing to get back there the next day too.Needless to say,there were many superbly creative exhibits from students of nearly 25 other schools from the state.Within a short span of time we made good friends with almost half of them.Thats how we kids are!
And the final night of the event which was the eve of new year was much celebrated with the rain joining us and packing ups and goodbyes filling the venue.We too left,with a brand new experience packed in our kitty.