Q1.
In small groups, choose an animal or bird near you that needs protection. What can you do to help? Create a protection plan and share it with the class.
Answer
Choose an animal you can actually see near your school, and write a plan with three parts — what is going wrong, what you will do, and how you will know it worked. The women of Assam did exactly this for the Hargila bird, and its numbers went up.
Step 1 — Choose. Pick something local. A creature you can watch is worth ten famous animals you cannot.
| Animal or bird | What is going wrong for it | What children can actually do |
|---|---|---|
| House sparrow | New buildings have no holes or ledges for nests; few seeds and insects left | Put up cardboard or wooden nest boxes; keep a shallow water bowl on the wall; leave a little grain out |
| Street dogs | Hunger, thirst, injuries, cruelty | Keep a water bowl; tell an adult about a hurt dog; never throw stones; put up a "we feed here" note |
| Pond frogs and fish | The pond is filling with plastic and dirty water | Hold a monthly clean-up; put a bin near the pond; a poster asking people not to wash things in it |
| Butterflies and bees | No flowering plants; sprays killing insects | Grow marigold, tulsi and curry-leaf in pots at school; ask that no spray be used there |
| Vultures | Fewer nesting trees; poisoned food | Protect the big old trees they nest in; tell people never to poison a dead animal |
| Monkeys near the temple | Fed junk food, tangled in wires | A polite board asking people not to feed them packets of chips |
| Peacocks in the fields | Hunted for feathers; poisoned grain | Tell an adult if you see a trap; keep a water pot in summer |
Step 2 — Fill in this plan.
| Part of the plan | Sample answer — the house sparrow |
|---|---|
| Which animal, and where | The house sparrow, around our school wall and the neem tree at the gate |
| What is going wrong | The new building has smooth walls with no holes to nest in, and there is no water in the summer |
| What we will do | Make ten nest boxes from old shoe boxes and hard board; fix them under the roof edge; keep two clay bowls of water filled; scatter a handful of broken rice near the tree |
| Who does what | Group A makes the boxes; Group B fills the water every morning; Group C counts the birds each Friday |
| Who will help us | The class teacher, the school gardener, and one parent who has kept a nest box before |
| How we will know it worked | Count sparrows for five minutes every Friday and put the number on a chart. If any nest box is used, mark the date |
| How we will tell others | A poster at the school gate and a two-minute talk at assembly |
Why the Hargila story is the right model: The Hargila, the Greater Adjutant Stork, was disliked — people called it dirty and cut down its nesting trees. Women in Assam changed that. They did not fence off a forest. They gave the bird a good name, taught children to guard its nests, and made it something to be proud of. Because everyone in the village joined in, the numbers went up. Protection works best when the local people want it, not when it is ordered from outside.
Keep it small and keep it going. One water bowl filled every day of the summer helps more birds than a big poster made once and forgotten. Choose something you can keep doing.