Anant School for Climate Action at Anant National University collaborated with Earthday.org to celebrate Earth Day on 22nd April 2023. The theme for this year is “Invest on our Planet.”

The students, faculty and staff of Anant National University organised a citizen awareness quiz at the Riverfront area on Saturday where the representatives held group discussions with the citizens walking and cycling in the area. The efforts of Anant National University in taking a lead to impart climate education was also well received by the people.

The collaboration of Anant School for Climate Action with the prestigious Earthday.org, the global organizer of Earth Day is instrumental in promoting the students of Anant National University as Earth ambassadors, youth representatives who will drive the force towards stronger climate action. This also makes for a meeting of minds towards a common aim that makes climate education engaging, accessible, and reliable. Earthday.org is working with more than 1,50,000 partners in 196 countries to build environmental democracy. The network works through a combination of education, public policy, and consumer campaigns to accomplish their goals.

Earthday.org aims to empower and mentor AnantU students with a tremendous learning experience through synchronous and asynchronous learning modules. The association started with a workshop where students interacted with global change pioneers who introduced students to the various projects Earthday.org works on around the world.

Dr. Rohan Dutta, Associate Professor, Anant School for Climate Action, Anant National University said, “The collaboration between Anant School for Climate Action & Earthday.org fosters an environment for a unique opportunity to complement the academic interests with hands-on work experiences and expand their knowledge of global climate problems. Events like citizen awareness and research give our students an understanding of the grassroots. It is helpful for them to understand the need and thereby work on creating solutions”.

Anoushka Mahajan, a second semester student of Bachelor of Technology specialising in Climate Change, explained, “We feel that spreading awareness about climate action is the first step of investing for planet. I was involved in a research project where I understood that knowledge gap was  the biggest barrier towards reaching a solution. While my bigger goal in life is to create technologies for climate, working with Earthday.org is gave me an opportunity to understand the situation at the grassroots level and apply my classroom knowledge into action”.

The Earthday.org team will mentor AnantU students in their various research projects to tackle complex climate challenges like water purification and lake restoration where the students will actively work towards harnessing green technology to purify the existing sources of water in India at the grassroots level. The mentorship will also support students’ applied research projects in the area of eliminating plastic pollution, improving climate and environmental literacy, and regenerative agriculture.

During the summer break, the students will be exploring internship opportunities at the Ahmedabad and National offices of Earthday.org.

Earth Day Network is a non-profit organization whose mission is to diversify, educate and activate the environmental movement worldwide. Growing out of the first Earth Day in 1970, Earth Day Network is the world’s largest platform to promote environmental movement.