Proud moment: 5 win Wipro Earthian award

Chandni Shukal, 13, smiles instantly when someone calls her a “student scientist”. It’s got a nice ring to it and for her, it’s an upgrade from just being called a student.

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“Acha Lagta hai (I like it),” she says. Her father is a daily wager working in construction industry and her mother a homemaker, taking care of two younger siblings. She wants to become a scientist, when she grows up, “Or maybe a pilot. I really liked sitting in an airplane. It was exciting, almost scary, but exciting,” she said. Just like her favourite subject, science.

Her recent affiliation towards flying planes might be a direct influence of boarding an airplane for the first time, along with four of her school mates, all students of class VI at Government Senior Secondary Smart School, Kot Khalsa. These girls along with their mentor, Palvinder Kaur, who is a science teacher at the school, were recognised for being among those with 20 best projects for the National Wipro Earthian Award 2024-25.

Wipro Earthian winners represent a diverse group of schools from 15 states, working on different themes of the programme, namely, waste, water and biodiversity. The winning teams include both government and private schools, with a total of 20 schools making it to the national final list this time. The GSSS, Kot Khalsa, team flew to Bangalore to receive its award, along with other winners from Ladakh, Nagaland, Chhattisgarh and other states.

Palvinder Kaur led the project that won a place in the national list of winners. She and her five students of Class 6 had been working on the theme of solid waste management around the year, planning and implementing collection, segregation and reuse of wet, dry and plastic waste.

Their project beat 1,550 other entries submitted nationally to become the winner from Punjab. The team will receive a cash prize of Rs 50,000 along with the award. This project was assigned by Punjab State Council for Science and Technology in collaboration with Wipro.

“We worked on segregation and disposal of five types of waste ie dry, wet, medical, e-waste and plastic waste. We also conducted a waste audit where we found that up to 60% waste generated in our school is dry and wet waste category,” saidSonakshi, one of the team members and a student scientist.

The team had Sonakshi, Deepika, Chandni, Prabhjot Kaur and Anmoldeep Kaur. While working on it for almost a year, Prabhjot said they also surveyed the area around the school for dumping grounds and carried out awareness campaigns to educate people on sustainable waste management.

Under the project, these students collected, segregated paper and plastic waste and made an insect-repellent using waste paper. “We also created a bioplastic using kitchen waste, mostly from the skin of vegetables,” said Sonakshi, who now knows the process well enough to teach an entire village.

Sonakshi wants to become a judicial officer as she says, “But I want to continue learning science. It makes studying fun,” she says. Her mother, Pooja, a homemaker, shares her daughter’s excitement, though, for her, its Sonakshi’s first-ever air travel that makes her feel immensely proud of her daughter’s achievements. “I feel these children are like plants and the more we nurture them with care and support, they will grow into big trees,” says Pooja. The biggest food for these “plants” is their teacher Palvinder Kaur’s guidance.

“We have been sending students to various national and international level science competitions, including National Science Congress and Punjab State Council for Science and Technology’s competitions. I want to integrate scientific temperament and understanding with classroom teaching,” says Palvinder.

....BOX: About the awards

These are annual sustainability awards given by Wipro Organisation, recognising government and private schools for their efforts in sustainable solutions for solid and wet waste, plastic waste management and environmental challenges. They invite applications from across the country and divide the projects into categories.