This was an initiative by Fountainhead School, where we contributed towards the cleaning of dirty beaches in Surat City. We were at the Suvali beach, where there was a lot of plastic, bio-degradable waste. People dump the waste all around the place, not even thinking about the global consequences and repercussions. It looked like a pretty isolated beach compared to other beaches. The isolation made the horizon ever so better to look at, all quiet and in peace. But then came the real shock. We looked around properly, and there it was heaps of garbage stacked near the thorns and bushes with all types of trash from plastic bags to liquor bottles. At this point, we knew what we had to do or more like, what we needed to do. We took on the job in our hands and put in some work to clean the beach as much as we could.
LO2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process
While doing this activity, we underwent a lot of challenges. Picking up garbage is not something that we do on a daily basis. Our reaction on picking up the garbage was not very open-minded. This was mainly because of the different way we were brought up and that we haven’t done anything like this before. However, once we started this activity we were getting around the surrounding. We were soon okay and we overcame a challenge that we faced initially. We did not develop a major skill in this process however we did enhance teamwork skills as that was one of the ways we were able to complete it quickly. We worked together as a team and picked up as much garbage as possible.
LO4: Commitment to and perseverance
We had in our minds, that we have to clean the beach in a certain time frame. We were quite determined towards the task given by the school authority and dealt with sincerity.
LO5:- Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively.
Cleaning a beach is not easy especially if you’re alone but thankfully that was not the case. We were all divided into groups of 5 and were segregated to certain areas. Each group had to fill the trash in a big trash-bag. Here came the issue, nobody wanted to hold the trash-bag. So after some arguments, we came to a sensible conclusion to hold the trash-bag for every 5 minutes and then give it to the next person. This made the whole process much smoother and easier and we did a lot of more productive work than quarreling. Each member helped out equally and our area of the beach looked much better now. Other groups also did their work in a similar style and overall we had done a proficient job of cleaning the beach.
LO6:- Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance.
Pollution is a major threat to our planet earth. Environment pollution in various ways is now a global issue. This problem affects different people in different ways and levels. Garbage ridden beaches are not a pleasant site. They cause a lot of diseases and are overall not healthy for the population. Our school decided to contribute to this global issue by cleaning a beach. There was a lot of garbage on the beach which could harm the animals as well as contaminate the water. So our action was a cause for the society as a whole. Despite all the campaigns and awareness created by our government regarding cleanliness, people still throw garbage around. They do not fulfill their basic civic duty as citizens. After doing this activity I realized the enormity of the rise in pollution. It was a great feeling to contribute to the global cause and I intend to continue my contribution to preventing the destruction of our environment.
LO7:- Recognise and consider the ethics of choices and actions
Most of us won’t have experienced such sort of work before in their lives, hence it always was a tough choice to clean the beach. Some of us may feel inferior in cleaning the rubbish, whereas someone may take it as a responsibility. I usually do these kinds of work at home, where I generally help my mom out when she has to bring some stuff from outside because I took it as my responsibility. Similarly, there I took cleaning the beach as a responsibility and made an ethical choice to clean the beach.
