Eco Club

INTRODUCTION

Environmental awareness has become an unavoidable reality in today’s globalised reality. It is through this the wrongs against nature can be measured. It is now the time to rethink our anthropocentric views on nature. For decades, educators around the world have accepted and acknowledged the potential of environment education to sensitize people towards corrective environmental practices.

The collective realization of imparting environment related education over the past few years has made it necessary to improve the concept of environment conservation all over the world. However, the efforts put in by individuals and other agencies are limited and infrequent. Recently a new trend has been observed in the development of environmental awareness among children. The underlying concept here is that the most important target group in public education is young people, and educational institute is the avenue to instill good practices in them (UNEP, 2014). It is believed that youths are more proactive and caring; hence, they can make a difference by influencing adults with their thoughts and actions. Education related to environment can strongly influence improvement in health, hygiene, demographic profile and productivity; practically all these factors are interlinked with the quality of life. It plays a major role in improving social opportunities for people and enhancing their quality of life by building capabilities, enhancing skill levels and providing more productive employment. This is the main purpose for a premiere educational institution like Asutosh College to come up with the idea of establishment of Eco Club.

Asutosh College Eco Club is an institutionally inspired voluntary club which promotes participation of students and teachers in knowing and improving our environment. The Club has been set up with the purpose to create mass awareness and to incorporate as much people as possible for understanding our environment better. Moreover, Eco Club allows the students and the teachers to come out of the classroom specificity and notice the world more closely. 

Asutosh College Eco Club aims at conservation, protection and management of the environment, essential for achieving sustainable living and development. Eco Club ensures that it is the time to look closely at nature for greener and safer tomorrow.  

THE BEGINNING

The Club started working under the leadership of Dr. Subhayan Dutta, CWTT in Environmental Science from 2013.

OBJECTIVES

• To arouse love and responsibility towards nature. 
• To create an awakening in the young minds for preserving and conserving natural environment and to make them more sensitive towards surroundings. 
• To motivate the students to keep their surroundings green and clean by undertaking plantation of trees.
• To promote the ethos of conservation of water by minimizing the use of water.
• To motivate the students to imbibe habits and life style for minimum waste generation, source separation of waste and disposing the waste at the nearest storage point.
• To educate the students to create awareness amongst public and sanitary workers, so as to stop the indiscriminate burning of waste that causes respiratory diseases.
• To sensitize the students to minimize the use of plastic bags, not to discard them in public places as they choke drains and sewers, causing water logging and providing breeding ground for mosquitoes.
• To involve Eco Club students in open-orientation programmes in schools and public areas and to organize tree plantation programmes, awareness programmes through quizzes, essay, painting competitions, rallies, nukkad natak, etc., regarding various environmental issues and educating children about re-use of waste material and preparation of products out of waste.
• To create awareness of biodiversity conservation and local environmental issues among all. 
• To create a ‘clean and green consciousness’ among students through various innovative methods. 

ACTIVITIES OF THE ECO CLUB IN BRIEF

2014:

• Celebration of World Environment Day.
• Speaker: Dr. Aniruddha Mukhopadhyay.
• Presentation by students on relevant and current environmental problems.

2015:

• Celebration of World Environment Day.
• Debate competition by students on relevant and current environmental problems.
• Drama organized on Waste Management.

PRESENT WORKING MEMBERS OF THE CLUB (2017 ONWARDS)

Conveners:

Smt Shramana Roy Barman, Assistant Professor in Environmental Science
Smt Arundhati Ganguly, Assistant Professor in Environmental Science
Dr. Subhayan Datta, SACT in Environmental Science

Members: 

Dr. Kaizer Hossain, Assistant Professor in Environmental Science
Sri Gouranga Charan Jana, Librarian
Dr. Supatra Sen, Associate Professor in Botany
Dr. Pradyut Biswas, Assistant Professor in Botany
Dr. Mithu Biswas, Assistant Professor in Botany
Dr. Samrat Datta, Assistant Professor in Bengali
Smt Sritama Chaudhuri, Assistant Professor in Sociology
Dr. Sankar Chandra Basu, Assistant Professor in Microbiology
Dr. Rabia Sultana, Assistant Professor in Electronics
Dr. Santanu Chowdhury, Assistant Professor in Environmental Science
Dr. Priyanka Roy, Assistant Professor in Journalism & Mass Communication
Dr. Utpal Kumar Barman, Assistant Professor in Industrial Fish and Fisheries
Dr. Sayanti Poddar, SACT in Geography
Smt. Chandrani Dutta, SACT in Environmental Science
Dr. Sayanti Kar, SACT in Environmental Science
Dr. Indrajit Ghosh, SACT in Environmental Science
Dr. Arijit Chatterjee, SACT in Environmental Science
Dr. Sruti Karmakar, SACT in Environmental Science
Dr. Amitava Ghosh, SACT in Botany
Dr. Monideepa Bhattacharya, SACT in Botany
Dr. Paromita Roy Chowdhury, SACT in Bio- Chemistry
Dr. Prasenjit Pandey, SACT in Chemistry
Smt. Toushali Raina, SACT in Political Science
Dr. Nirmalya Chakraborty, SACT in Microbiology
Dr. Nabanita Bhattacharjee, SACT in Journalism & Mass Communication
Sri Vincent Souvik Gomes, SACT in Microbiology

ACTIVITIES (2017 ONWARDS)

2017: Celebration of World Environment Day.
Speaker: Dr. Pritam Aich.
Cultural Performances by students highlighting relevant environmental issues.

2018: Celebration of World Environment Day.
Speaker: Dr. Sandipan Ganguly.
Inauguration of Eco Club Newsletter THE GREENPRINT

2019: Celebration of World Environment Day.
Speaker: Mr. Jayanta Basu
Extempore by students on relevant and current environmental problems.