Greenhorns Festival

Yesterday, it was back to school for me. Not my school, but got a chance to conduct a discussion session after a movie screening of this animated movie called 'There's no tomorrow' for 8th standard kids. The location was Modern School, Barakhamba.

Needless to say, I was nervous! and that too days before the event.

I must thank my fellow climate champion Saumya for giving me this opportunity. She is the co-founder of the environmental social networking site- battigul.org and it was part of their Greenhorns Festival.(http://www.battigul.org/event/7)

I happily volunteered for this movie-screening activity as I love watching, discussing and making movies! Thanks to my journalism days and those discussions after the countless screenings of documentaries and off-beat cinema.

But, discussing a movie with kids was a first for me, and the challenge got me excited in the first place to sign up for this.

So, here I was all set after watching the half an hour movie a couple of times and making notes on the concepts mentioned in it. Simplifying the statistics and information for the kids to understand.

There's no tomorrow speaks about the increasing consumption of fossil fuel by the world and its implication on resource depletion and our future. 

Now, the movie even though animated had many stats and graphs (since it kept mentioning about effect on economy and growth) So I was apprehensive whether the 8th standard kids will be able to follow or not. So I decided to stop two times in between (at these section breaks) and I summarised what was mentioned and also threw some fun facts and asked these little questions on concepts mentioned in the movie like: Energy density, EROEI (Energy returned on energy invested), carrying capacity etc.

And these kids were bright :-D Initially when the movie was playing and the audi was dark, i could hear the kids talking among themselves and I was terrified that the discussion would be dull and silent, but I was pleasantly surprised as they actively participated and correctly answered almost all the questions.

As for the restlessness and not paying attention, its natural at their age :)

In all, it was a lovely experience and honestly hearing a short brief about me being read out at the beginning made me feel strange (in a good way) and nostalgic as I was on the 'other side' in school for the first time. 

I have to do the same at two other schools in the coming week. So, I hope to get better and more confident of myself. 

Till then, enjoy the movie: