A much needed one stop destination portal for educational, interactive and engaging content on the environment and sustainable practices — One Planet Academy — was launched at the G.P.Birla Centre here on Tuesday.
The first environment education portal for students and teachers in India was created by WWF-India Hyderabad Office in association with Birla Science Centre and technology major Capgemini. The website would focus on various environmental themes and serve as a digital hub for schools, teachers and students that also offered a digital training and resource centre.
Principal Secretary, Industry and Commerce and IT, Jayesh Ranjan who launched the portal said that One Planet Academy was one of the unique ideas initiated by WWF-India. He urged students and teachers to take advantage of the online portal. He also said students should explore the outdoors and understand the challenges that were faced in urban areas. Manager and Sustainability Champion of Capgemini India Uday Shankar Peyyetti, was guest of honour.
Explaining about the vision of the project, state director WWF-India, Hyderabad Office, Farida Tampal said that a gap existed in the present education system to focus adequately on environment and sustainability aspects and this portal would make it more hands on and action oriented and would provide resource support to teachers, students and parents, she said.
It would also catalogue existing rich content created by experts in WWF-India on environment, biodiversity, conservation, education and sustainability and creation.
The teacher section in the portal will provide ideas for projects and activities along with publications related to educating young learners about the environment. The website will also provide short-term online training courses for teachers. For students, the OPA is a fun virtual library, with informative e-books and stories, interactive games, films and competitions.