 The next few minutes are going to be about setting up the context. Context is something which is going to determine the quality of the course, as well as our defining or, you know, discovering our own roles for it. Simply put, context would be, there's a time when human beings lived from a context that Earth was flat. And at some point in time that context changed and we actually started living in a spherical world. So all our actions were then consistent with this new paradigm or the new context. So we're going to create some of these contexts over here so that the course can then find new home and it will be shaped by the context. So I want to invite you to participation, your active participation. The course, by the way, has already started. That's meant to be focus of our work together. So we are not focusing on sharing of knowledge and that may happen, likely to happen, will happen. We're also not having the context be or the focus be that of how to have students pass their exams. And you know, students may pass their exams too. This is more of a fulfillment of a vision. And what that vision is. So let me just read this out to you. It's from the vision. So there's a committee that was set up by the Honorable Supreme Court and this is an excerpt of the vision that was created by the committee. So they acknowledge that while these contents of the syllabus for environmental studies, there will be gaps. So whatever they propose, they said there would be gaps between what is considered ideal and the present syllabus, what you probably seen blue on the text. And I think the most important part of that vision has been for me that the committee has attempted to minimize the gaps by intellectual and material inputs. The success of this course will however depend on the initiative and drive of the teachers and their students. So if it's not clear as of now who is the teacher, we're talking about it is the person who's sitting in your chair, your chair, that person, that person, the teacher. And the students are, you know, the people who would be in our classrooms and who we serve. So during the next 10 days there will be a blend or there will be a transition from you being a teacher and you being a student. So we will be in this whole space of teaching and learning and sometimes we'll forget who's a teacher and who's a student but that's the nature of the work that's going to happen. Okay, now this course in some sense was a requirement by the Honorable Supreme Court and the word requirement invariably tends to devolve into like you have to or like there was no choice or like somebody put a gun on my head. I have to do it because I don't have choice. A lot of times education and degree certificates are also requirements for a job and Professor Fartek mentioned a little bit about what if the entire outlook was that of getting to the next level of our own evolution. So I'm going to invite you to this course, not so much because it's an honorable Supreme Court requirement but what it was actually important to life. And I don't know, breathing is also a requirement. So you'll have to probably look to see whether not having a choice about breathing is related to as a requirement. So in that light we will look at this particular course. Not a problem, not a problem. So it's been in the news lately. The National Green Tribunal has asked the University of Garns Commission to regularly monitor the mandatory implementational six month core module. I say six month over here. We have been doing it for 40 hours, about 40 hours a semester equally divided between humanities and social sciences and Center for Environmental Science and Engineering. We will do it at Amrita Nikhil. So at some point in time when you come on you should probably share that. Okay, so there is definitely a legal aspect of this whole thing but we're not going to spend more time on it. We just want to deal with it as something which is important for us and we are going to be sharing it with our students. Now I'm sure most of you at some point in time have gone on to Google and said environmental studies, UGC and up pops up this particular first research, it's actually the syllabus as well as a book and right on the same screen on the right hand side there is an online shopping opportunity. So I said let me take a look at that as well and you actually have several books. The font I've deliberately kept it as small because this is not an advertisement but I just want to let you know the most expensive book over there is 196 rupees. So there are books available and one of the things that you might find we do in the next 10 days are things that are not in any of these books. So those books are already available. Have a great time, we enjoyed these books as well and we continue to look to see what is the next in terms of syllabus development, content development and you know I actually am committed that by the end of this exercise all of us actually will be able to contribute to the next generation of these books and contents that are available whether it's hard bound books available as textbooks or whether they're available in the new modes that Professor Fatak has just shared about. So here is the context that I have stood inside of to deliver this course for my students and I'm just going to share these with you. The students are actually leaders of tomorrow. I'm very black and white about that. So the students are leaders of tomorrow. They are the decision makers. I also know that I only have about six hours during the entire semester the one time, the only time I get to meet with these students in their entire four year, five year course program over here. Six hours is all I have with them and I very upfront let them know that six hours I'm not going to be able to turn them into experts in air quality. I teach air quality. So I tell them I said you know the best I'll probably do is to introduce some of the biggest concerns that are there and some of the vocabulary that you may want to pick up so that when you pick up the newspaper tomorrow you actually can understand the nitty gritty and the technical details. I also use some of the research projects that we've been doing. I share with them what is it that we are doing as a state of the art which a lot of times may not necessarily be available in books. So this is projects that are real time happening, some of the data that are being brought in from the students who are working. So you actually get to share live data and you actually get to share live issues in managing air quality and I even at some point in time I'll share a video with you not during the course but I'll give you access to it where we had Sri Jairam Ramesh come he was the minister of environment and forest at that time where he had come in and I even wanted to inspire students to look into taking up politics. I don't see many students taking up politics but why not inspire them into careers that actually are in the area of environmental protection and that's a great outcome if this course can put them on that track or inspire them to get out of that track. Also just want to share with you that we're really not intending for this to be 50 ways how to save the planet how to be a good responsible citizen those are great and if you go to any bookstore or any library you'll be able to find these books and I think everybody should take on these practices and do that. The focus is that we're not as much a consumer of this information but at the source of this knowledge leading from the front and that's again an opportunity for all of us to bring partnership to. I'm going to request professor Partha Sarthi and from this point on for the next four slides we will do Jughal Bandi so over to professor Partha Sarthi. Thank you. We have this speak-making international convention going on so there are a lot of very interesting and people with much greater expertise than us doing Jughal Bandis so this is a different kind of a Jughal Bandi so in the earlier slide professor Sati mentioned about the fact that this is not an environment studies for dummies kind of course it's not about 50 ways to increase awareness like you have this internet for dummies C++ for dummies Einstein for dummies and so on this is not that kind of a course having said that I think one of the things that we need to make explicit in our teaching is to explain the nature and purpose of this course if it is not simply to spread awareness while acknowledging that that is one of the objectives what are we trying to convey through this course because what happens is that these kinds of a course it's very easy for people to think that what we are learning is common sense even though we know that there is a lot of stupidity in the way in which we address the environment so it seems very common sensical that we have to do certain things when we relate to the environment and yet we find a lot of people with a lot of knowledge, a lot of skills, a lot of expertise do not always do the right thing the common sensical things when it comes to the environment so we need to convey in many different ways and we all will find appropriate ways of doing this based on our own interaction with the students and our own individual areas of specialization somewhere we need to convey that environmental problems and issues are technical issues that they require high levels of skill, knowledge and expertise at the same time we need to be aware of the fact that environmental problems cannot be resolved or addressed by environmental experts alone and this is one of the things that Professor Fartek was trying to say that we have these problems with the silo approach that we think engineering is to be done by certain people policy will be addressed by others politicians will make certain decisions and so on so there is an inherent danger that environmental studies will become a specialization in itself and that most people in the world don't have to worry about environmental issues because others who have qualified in environmental studies will take care of it that is not what we are trying to achieve the entire objective of the Supreme Court judgment and of the UGC initiative here is to ensure that each of us irrespective of our own individual areas of specialization will have to incorporate the environmental thinking so that whatever we do whatever technologies we develop whatever solutions we propose whatever perspectives we offer will have an environmental dimension to it I will hand it back to you okay good so the relationship with the students you know I don't know how to say it but they are already leaders they are already responsive citizens so if I have that handled for myself as a teacher then the kinds of things that I would be wanting to provide and needing to provide would be very different than if there were people who were just interested in passing an exam so for example some of the things that emerge then if they are already leaders and if they are already responsible citizens is how can this course address their unanswered questions as leaders as people who are already responsible I just want to share something with you when I was a child and I once was I used to think that pardon me for saying this but I used to think and you know it was a very powerful conviction that I had that all adults were idiots and the reason I really was that conviction had come to be for me was if human beings, if adults had any sense at all why would there be war on the planet so for me you know it was hey that for me is evidence that adults are idiots was just a few years later that I became that adult so now what war still exists on planet do I have responsibility towards what humanity is headed towards yeah absolutely but the kind of questions that I need to ask now so that my son or generations to come will then look back to see what is the responsibility that you and I took on that actually made a difference and I think the place to start with is that we are dealing with people with students who are already leaders who are already responsible citizens and you know I'm sure you've experienced this with your own children, with your own students that a lot of times they are way ahead of us in terms of the knowing and in terms of the kinds of things that they can do as long as we are not in the way we have some great youth festivals on our campus and I think they are phenomenal they are recognized world over and that has no involvement from us adults and I think they can do such a great job because we are not interfering so we really need to look to see where we have a parent role to play and where we have a mentor role to play where we have a coaching role to play and the coaching for me comes from a place of you already have great players and our job is to make sure that they win and them winning would be our victory that's what the coach's job is to make sure that the players win and that's our job so the questions that will then emerge for us is how can this course address their unanswered questions this is a course which provides maybe the only opportunity to ask the questions in environmental protection and get resolved for oneself and then ultimately stepping up to be accountable for their respective towns and cities so I'll share about this little later when I talk about the air quality module but there are times when students don't submit an assignment and they have their reasons for not submitting it and their biggest concern is whether I will penalize them for giving late submissions I even have them submit assignments up to one day for the submission of the online grades and the reason for that is the kind of work that we are asking them to do they will never have another chance to deal with it or be able to work with it they I'll share about that a little more kind of assignments that we've been giving which is kind of opening up that leadership and opening up the stepping up accountability if you are relating with them as leaders they show up very differently and their masks are very different so I just want to set that up as a context I think we go to the next slide and over to Partha Hi, I am back again so while I agree with Professor Seti that students are leaders and are responsible citizens we must not forget that they are still students so while as adults we make mistakes we also learn from those mistakes the idea here is to ensure that students do not have to go through the same mistakes that we as adults have committed for several generations so from that perspective it is possible that because environmental studies is a mandatory course which students have not chosen to do there can be certain problems, there can be a resistance that resistance can be that this is not what I signed up for this is not what I am paying for why should I study this and therefore it is it becomes our duty to sustain interest and to explain the logic behind the introduction of this kind of a course but resistance can also be from other perspectives and that is also important to generate leaders of tomorrow because this generation especially is interested in understanding the logic behind why they are asked to do certain things not like older generations which were happy to do whatever their adults told them to do right or wrong therefore it becomes very difficult for us but also more interesting for us to incorporate this into our teaching because students relate to engineering in particular ways to technological solutions in particular ways relate to their lifestyles in particular ways it is not always easy to make them realize that some of these choices they have made come with problems they may be very good and very interested in refrigeration and air conditioning but when they are told that these technologies also have implications for global warming it raises certain existential questions about who they are, their career choices their own interest in their subjects and so on and that also creates resistance but like professor Phatak was saying in the morning earlier these also give us new opportunities for us to engage with students of different kinds diverse kinds of students with different kinds of skills so environment studies particularly offers opportunities to ensure that students with different kinds of capabilities discover what those capabilities are and build upon them so in my own classes for example I found students with backlog students who have failed and so on do remarkably well in environmental studies because these students had language problems maybe came from villages small towns with poor educational backgrounds but they had a consciousness of environmental issues and they were able to do better other students maybe were very good at road learning and memorizing and writing exams but when it came to reflecting on environmental issues vis-a-vis their own areas of specialization we found them lacking so projecting environmental studies as a blend of science, engineering, policy and social, cultural, economic impacts that requires a certain kind of imagination and it is important that we do not simply preach because that can create resistance it is important that we do not just give them a glimpse of controversial issues without telling them how to address these controversies so these are all quite difficult challenges for us and in the next few days we hope to give you a glimpse of how we tackle these challenges in our classrooms if this was not a required course would the students take it and how much would they pay by the way I think most of the time we do pay for courses but there are courses that are required courses and there are courses that are electives so this is a required course and you know if this was to be turned into an elective course is it a popular enough course an important enough course for people to actually register for it and pay for it that's a question and I extended it then to say if you were not required to teach it each one of us has our own favorite subjects and if it is not a required subject would you teach it if you were not required to teach it would you prefer to hand it over to someone else and of course the more difficult question would you pay to teach this course and of course we gave an example of the professor at Cornell okay so we're going to do now some notebook work and it's a little difficult exercise okay and I do this with my students in the class and I invite you to look to see generate value for it of it for yourself and see how that works so the exercise is this in your notebooks create a context that would have you be at the source of teaching this course even if you had to pay for it so the hint for this assignment is that this is not for you it is more for your children and grandchildren who will be grateful for you having done this notebook work okay so I'm going to give about 8 minutes for you to do this exercise in your notebook 8 minutes starting now please go ahead and start doing the work of creating a context that would have you be at the source of teaching this course even if you had to pay for it please go ahead okay let's move on so thank you for your work and you know it's a difficult exercise and if the context is not sorted out fully likely because 8 minutes is not sufficient so please use the next 10 days or so to get this sorted out for yourself okay alright I'll move on to the next slide so I'm now inviting you to invent your stakes in this game okay it's an invitation it's an invitation in which you can say yes or no let's get specific okay 7.4 billion people on this planet and this group of 4200 teachers right now on this course make up the 0.0006% to educate the youth of India if let's get more specific okay the person who is sitting in your chair is the only one the only one the only one oh let me go backwards the person who is sitting in your chair your chair the person who is sitting in your chair is the only one out of the 7.4 billion with that opportunity for your college okay so I think you should be convinced by now maybe I should not continue okay and a lot of times I will ask you this question because I don't know when to stop if you are already convinced then I should stop otherwise I could go on and on so I want to thank you for your participation in this course a lot of times this would come at the end of the course I'm thanking you right now because you don't know what's coming up next so you are a pretty courageous daring lot so welcome and I thank you for participating in this course we are honored to be spending this time with you we're honored that we will be working together to lay the foundations for our relationship with each other for this huge national effort there will be some assignments at the end of this 10 day training and one of them will be to create a vision for the youth of tomorrow caring for their environment as a matter of personal choice they make and then you would create a roadmap how you would contribute to the fulfillment of this vision alright so let me just tell you what our intentions are our intention number one is that for every hour in this training course you would save about 10 hours of work in preparation of your lectures our intention is also to celebrate our working together and set up a relationship for engagement nationally for the next 5 years so we would actually then put together databases of resources which would have journal papers, books, videos and other resources we are hoping that we will go multi-lingual on this Professor Kanan Modgallia said 22 languages you know we should look to see how we can take it up take this work that we are doing to do multiple languages and then somewhere I think there is nothing more inspiring than actually live projects which are in operation at local levels colleges are the driving force people are always looking at educational institutes to partner up and the energy of the young students to move things forward so that is our intention over here and I would like to now open up the session to hear from you what your aspirations are what your visions are what your commitments are and maybe even before you came on public maybe it's a good idea for you to now again because you were a little shy about it last time so if you can go ahead and please spend a minute each with your partner in sharing what your aspirations are and let me just ask this question alright now you know what the assignment is your assignment is to turn to your partner and share your aspirations your commitments and what would you like to get from this course so turn to your partner the person in the brown shirt okay share with this person what are your aspirations for this course everybody everybody turn to the person shake hands very good now talk to each other I love these people and shake hands next year