DESIGN FOR CHANGESCHOOL CHALLENGE 2012

SUBMISSION FORM

Name of School:Agakhan Youth And Sports Board For Pallavaram

Address: C2 SILVER JUBILEE CO-OPERATIVE HOUSING SOCIETY,P V VAITHYALINGAM ROAD,OLD PALLAVARAM CHENNAI-600117

Name of Mentor Teacher: sohail

Names of Students (core team): Sherize hamirani, afsha, amina, shahana mohammed hussain, ishaan kurlawala, muskaan kurlawala.

Tel.:9880650047

E-mail: smartsohail_123@yahoo.com

Give a title to your story of change. (For example, if it's a change story on getting people to wash hands to promote health you might want to title it “Health is Wealth”.):Grow plants –Drip irrigation & waste management

The week in which it was implemented: may 5th to Sep 20th

FEEL

A. In groups, take a walk around your school / community and OBSERVE carefully what issues bother you and what you will like to change for the better. (Example of issues that have bothered children – dirty bathrooms/bullying/ broken infrastructure/saving trees and animals / dull classrooms...)

B. TALK to the people involved or who are affected by the situation to find out more about what is causing the problem.

List the situations/problems in your school/community that bothered you:There are lots of issues that bother us and a few bother us the most when we see and come across issues like cutting down of trees, people littering all around the city, wastage of water and electricity, and people struggling for food cost of living going high , right knowledge of growing fruits vegetables and grains and lots more …

Who was affected by the situation/problem and what did they say?We are affected by all this directly or indirectly we don’t think about it in our daily lives but when we sit on the issues we have so much happening around us they look so big that nothing can be done.

DON'T FORGET to document each step with photographs/video/comments from students, teachers and people affected so you can inspire others.

IMAGINE

A. VOTE for the one problem that you will all like to see changed.

B. BRAINSTORM your solutions keeping these points in mind:1. Quickest impact2. Maximum people impacted3. Potential for long lasting change

C. Now VOTE for the solution that you would like to implement.

State the problem you chose and why did you CHOOSE it?Drip irrigation & waste management was something we wanted to work on this time we wanted to explore get knowledge and share the same with people whom this could help in their lives also gave knowledge about the same. And also for people to understand how difficult it is to grow the food that we eat everyday, so that we respect it. And also learn to take care of our environment.

List the different solutions you came up with and which one did you choose to implement and why?

1. Wanted to explore in detail on how plants grow and what would help it grow better.

2. share the information with the ones it would help also the one who would get knowledge and respect the hard work that goes in.

3. we would visit farms where we could see this happen practically and gain more knowledge that we could share.

4. Learn more and share about garbage segregation and hygiene.

DO

A. What resources will you need to implement your solution?1. How many people will you need?2. Would you need money and how will you raise the same (for example - organize fun fairs, charity cricket matches/sport events, auctions, offer

skill workshops, organize dance/music shows....)3. Will you need to organize transport? Who will you ask?4. Will you need permissions - from school / home / any other government or private organizations?

B. Now - Go ‘BE THE CHANGE’ YES! YOU CAN!!!1. This is our story of CHANGE! (Don’t forget to include the key highlights of your journey. Include challenges, successes and how YOU all were CHANGED) Please add page/s if needed.

This is our story of CHANGE!We had our 1st meet with our seniors who told us what the program was and also what we children are capable of doing. We had a very small group we came heard them and left. We were not sure if we can really do something so just did not bother thinking about it. When we were called again for a meeting to take updates we were not too sure as we could not do much on it.But due respect we went for the meeting. We were again told what children of our age are doing to make changes we were still not sure we were asked to sit in group and give it a thought. when our group came together we came up with so many issues . we also thought back that last year a few had worked on garbage clearance in the colonies and streets around and how that changed mind sets of people we decided to take up something that would educate people give knowledge of something that is about their own life. So we came up with topics like guidance on how to waste management, save electricity, water and also on guidance of our food that we eat everyday how it comes from where it comes and the process of fruits and vegetables. some of us do not know how all this is done we wake up eat work eat sleep. But we still don’t know the process so we took up drip irrigation. It shows us how the water is saved up in huge underground wells and passed on to the fruits and vegetables that we intake everyday. We do learn about it in school but we did not have enough details so we spoke to our teachers and surf the internet and took out all information.DRIP IRRIGATION SYSTEM  

Drip irrigation is used by farms, commercial greenhouses, and residential gardeners. Drip irrigation is adopted extensively in areas of acute water scarcity and especially for crops such ascoconuts, containerized landscape

trees, grapes, bananas, eggplant, citrus, strawberries, sugarcane, cotton, maize, and tomatoes. drip irrigation may help achieve water conservation by reducing evaporation and deep drainage when compared to other types of irrigation such as flood or overhead sprinklers since water can be more precisely applied to the plant roots. In addition, drip can eliminate many diseases that are spread through water contact with the foliage. Finally, in regions where water supplies are severely limited, there may be no actual water savings, but rather simply an increase in production while using the same amount of water as before. In very arid regions or on sandy soils, the preferred method is to apply the irrigation water as slowly as possible. Drip and subsurface drip irrigation is used almost exclusively when using recycled municipal waste water. Regulations typically do not permit spraying water through the air that has not been fully treated to potable water standards.

 Working of Drip Irrigation System:

Drip irrigation systems consist of emission devices serviced by a water distribution network that includes control zone equipment. At the water source, water is controlled with automatic valves, sometimes amended with nutrients or chemicals, filtered and regulated at levels suitable for the emission devices chosen and plants being grown. From there, water is delivered to each of the emission devices through a network of PVC and PE pipes. The emission device, whether it is drip tape, a drip emitter, jet or micro-sprinkler, then delivers water and nutrients to the soil where plant roots may nourish the plant. All components have attributes that affect performance, and that are traded off with initial, installation, operation and maintenance costs.

The advantages of drip irrigation are:

Fertilizer and nutrient loss is minimized due to localized application and reduced leaching.

Water application efficiency is high.

Field levelling is not necessary.

Fields with irregular shapes are easily accommodated.

Recycled non-potable water can be safely used.

Moisture within the root zone can be maintained at field capacity.

Soil type plays less important role in frequency of irrigation.

Soil erosion is minimized.

Weed growth is minimized.

Water distribution is highly uniform, controlled by output of each nozzle.

Labour cost is less than other irrigation methods.

Variation in supply can be regulated by regulating the valves and drippers.

Fertigation  can easily be included with minimal waste of fertilizers.

Foliage remains dry, reducing the risk of disease.

Usually operated at lower pressure than other types of pressurised irrigation, reducing energy costs.

The disadvantages of drip irrigation are:

Expense: initial cost can be more than overhead systems. Waste: the sun can affect the tubes used for drip irrigation,

shortening their usable life.

Clogging: if the water is not properly filtered and the equipment not properly maintained, it can result in clogging.

Drip irrigation might be unsatisfactory if herbicides or top dressed fertilizers need sprinkler irrigation for activation.

Drip tape causes extra cleanup costs after harvest. Users need to plan for drip tape winding, disposal, recycling or reuse.

Waste of water, time and harvest, if not installed properly. These systems require careful study of all the relevant factors like land topography, soil, water, crop and agro-climatic conditions, and suitability of drip irrigation system and its components.

Germination problems: in lighter soils subsurface drip may be unable to wet1 the soil surface for germination. Requires careful consideration of the installation depth.

Salinity: most drip systems are designed for high efficiency, meaning little or no leaching fraction. Without sufficient leaching, salts applied with the irrigation water may build up in the root zone, usually at the edge of the wetting pattern. On the other hand, drip irrigation avoids the high capillary potential of traditional surface-applied irrigation, which can draw salt deposits up from deposits below.

We got detailed information on advantages and disadvantages of drip irrigation. We ourselves realized all the hard work and process that goes in to growing what we eat. We sometimes make faces for the food we do not like but farmers really struggle to make that. We shared all this information to people we could reach to with pictures and charts .We then spread awareness on hygiene and waste management we also enacted a play on this to put it across to them in a different way to make it more interesting and entertaining. We took it to a next level from garbage clearance that we had done last year we spread more information extended to people we had not reached to last year. We gathered more information more crowd and spread awareness on how peoples heath get affected with garbage thrown all around and whats the best way to segregate.We tried out bit we could. Hope the message spreads as fast as light and people realize the importance on the right way to grow plants and benefits of this.

DON’T FORGET to include the key highlights of your journey. Include challenges, successes and how YOU all were CHANGED) Please add page/s if needed.