Pune, 31 August, 2015: While Science, English, Maths and other Olympiads are popular competitive exams among students, Pune’s forest division has come out with an Environment Olympiad in their attempt to raise awareness among youngsters about the environment and its conservation. The department of forest, government of Maharashtra, has announced an Olympiad on environment, climate change and forests for schools and colleges of the city. Environment minister Prakash Javadekar was in the city to launch the Olympiad on Sunday.
The competition will be among individual students and will also acknowledge the schools/colleges which come out best in the competition. The forest department, along with other environmental organisations, will prepare a set of 5,000 to 10,000 questions. Of these, questions will be administered to participants who will be given a unique ID and password after registering and can take the test at their own convenient time. The test will be for students from Class XI to the second year of graduation.
Registration for the Olympiad will open between September 1 and 15, whereas examinations will be held between September 15 and October 15. The grand award ceremony will be held on October 23.
The Olympiad will be divided into three categories – spellings, for students of standards V to VI, plants, for students of standards IX to XII, and trees, for undergraduate students of any discipline.
Ministry officials said this is a pilot project that is expected to help gauge the level of awareness among the youth and increase participation in various initiatives to save the environment.
The Olympiad will be open to all schools and colleges recognised by the state, central and international education boards. The format of the competition will include an online multiple-choice quiz and interested participants can prepare using the online resources and material specified on the website of the green Olympiad, an official said.
“This year, we are starting the test in English. However, next year, the Union ministry will take it up on a larger scale in various local languages. This is a good way to make students aware about various environmental topics such as forests, pollution, biodiversity, etc,” said environment minister Prakash Javadekar who inaugurated the website.
