Students of PSGG Kanya Gurukulam Higher Secondary School for Girls — Keerthika. G, R. Pavithra, S. Ramya, R. Nithya and A. Sowmya and their teacher T. Selvi are jubilant. Their project on ‘Effect of weather on wetland ecosystem in Singanallur Lake’ has been selected for the National level competition of the 23rd National Children Science Congress (NCSC) to be conducted from December 27 to 30 at Chandigarh.
The theme for NCSC this year is on understanding weather and climate. From a total of 206 projects from Tamil Nadu, this project has been chosen as the best from the State. “Weather and climate change is a pressing issue that affects us. When human habitation usurps water bodies there is imbalance and then we have the flooding as we see in Chennai. Coimbatore will be affected too. We have to step up awareness. Our project on Singanallur Lake highlighted these issues. We have to take efforts to reduce global warming and this is possible with changes in lifestyle,” says T. Selvi.
She says Singanallur Lake is choked with plastic wastes. “We no longer use plantain leaves. Our students also recorded how nearly 10,000 litres of water is wasted in a single day, even in small hotels. All this should change to pave the way for a healthy environment,” adds Selvi.
Several months of data collection, regular field trips to Singanallur Lake and many hours of research on studying the changing weather patterns at the lake have helped the team to put forward a winning project. They plan to take the awareness among students at various schools in the city and also to people living in an around the Singanallur Lake.
“At the National level, there will about 30 projects from every State and the top 20 projects will be selected as the winner. We are confident of making it to that list,” says Selvi.
The project
From August to October, the students observed birds, butterflies, dragonflies, plants, and changes in weather at Singanallur Lake. They recorded 70 species of birds, 27 species of butterflies, 13 species of dragonflies, and 58 plant species
The maximum temperature recorded at the lake in the last three months is 33 degrees Celsius. The students collected weather data of the lake for the last nine years
