SCHOOL CHILDREN INVOLVEMENT - LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT OF SENSORS

Dr. N. Sai Bhaskar Reddy, Coordinator, ClimaAdapt Project

About the Project

The overall goal of the ClimaAdapt program is to improve the adaptive capacity of the agriculture and water sectors in the states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu through development of appropriate adaptation measures and providing inputs to climate and sector plans. The main objective is to implement selected adaptation measures at a systems level, develop methodologies for up scaling, and build capacity of the relevant stakeholders to address climate change impacts.

WALAMTARI1 is one of the lead partners of ClimaAdapt project along with International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and MS Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) for implementing The Royal Norwegian Embassy, New Delhi or The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norway funded ClimaAdapt Project in collaborating with BIOFORSK- Norway. The major objective of the ClimaAdapt project is to capacitate the Agriculture and Water Sectors and farming communities to adapt to the future climate changes. Project encompasses four main Activities. Capacity Building is one of the main components in the project. WALAMTARI is responsible for Capacity Building activities in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh states.

1 WALAMTARI is the state level nodal agency for capacity building activities of Irrigation & Command Area Development Department of Government of Telangana . The Institute is at presently catering to the training needs of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana state Engineers, Officers of Agriculture Department, Farmer Organizations’ and NGOs on Irrigation Water Management, Institution Development, and Water Use Efficiency etc.

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Capacity Building activities include - awareness, sensitization, exposure, orientation training, Training of Trainers and field level on-farm trainings. WALAMTARI also initiated development of low cost sensors for on-farm water levels and flows, canal water levels and flows; reservoir water levels; soil moisture; ambient air temperature; relative humidity; in the paddy fields surface and subsurface water levels. The data is remotely transmitted from the sensors to the mobile phones every 1 to 3 hrs or as per the need. These are used for monitoring and decision making for ensuring water use efficiency through conservation and scheduling. These methods are useful for realizing “crop per drop efficiency” to cope with climate change.

Children and Climate change training programme was undertaken to raise awareness on Water use efficiency, Canal environment, Crop management, soil management Climate Change and its impact. Around 50 schools and 4223 school children were trained in the project areas on water use efficiency, Canal environment, crop management and soil management. The activities conducted including organizing rally with the school children regarding the Climate Change issues. On the eve of World Water Day in 2014 and 2015, posters competition was held. The topics covered under the programme are Gender and water, water use efficiency in agriculture, equitable water distribution, rain water harvesting technologies, water sharing, Water and Sustainable Development. The prize winners were presented with appreciation certificates and every student who took part has been given a participation certificate.

Children were involved in pilot demonstration of crop water management. This is activity was initiated so that children would learn about Agriculture practices and technologies. The ClimaAdapt project team with the support of teachers initiated this activity.

Three schools in the project areas were involved. In Telangana State, Zilla Parishad High School (ZPHS), Kondrapole, Damarcharla Mandal, Nalgonda

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District covering 80 students from 6th to 9th Class. In Andhra Pradesh State, ZPHS Muppala, Muppala Mandal, Guntur District and ZPHS, Kanaparru, Nadendla Mandal, Guntur District. 40 students in each village covering 6th to 9th classes.

Close to the schools, paddy fields were selected. The control fields and fields with ‘Alternative Wetting and Drying’ practice were selected.

The children could learn many things through this activity.

1. Awareness on water use efficiency and productivity through water measurement.

2. The conservation of water3. Rate of water utilization per unit of crop4. Losses of water in irrigation5. The canal environment – health of canals, structures and conveyance

systems6. Sensors –

a. These are low cost efficient sensors  developed by us at present our sensors cost only Rs. 2000 to Rs. 3000, otherwise in the market they are costing around Rs. 1 lakh each.  

b. Development of monitoring kits using sensorsc. Hardware – Arduino micro-controller boards (open source

hardware) and SIM 900 GSM boards. Power options – batteries, solar power, etc.

d. Software – C Language based open softwaree. Sensors – Ultrasonic for water level; Temperature and relative

humidity (local weather); soil moisture sensors - The soil moisture sensors helped them in understanding the Irrigation scheduling (or irrigation schedule for crops especially for other than paddy crops).

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f. RBC flumes used for measuring the water flows based on water level installed in the unlined field channels.

g. Bowman water tube – A simple tube used for measuring the surface and subsurface water level in the paddy field, which are fitted with ultrasonic sensors.

h. Different adaptation measures in Paddy Cultivation, data collection using sensors.

i. Learning about Climate Change – Adaptation and mitigation.

*Note: The children are able to learn Science of Agriculture, Irrigation systems and methods of irrigation, Physics – through use of sensors and most importantly learning about their our local environment.

Traditionally the school education has not stressed on the importance of educating children to learn from their local environments. Otherwise there is not much scope for children to learn such things in their schools. Agriculture is an important livelihood in rural areas, still there is not much in the syllabus of children. These kinds of hands on experience by children help them to learn from their own environment and also get connected with the livelihoods of their parents. The children would also disseminate their learning’s and impact at least 5 generations.

These children are in turn sharing their experience with the sensors and encouraging their parents to adopt them for water and crop management. In the future their learning would also help the farmers to maintain their equipment installed in their fields with the support their own children ensuring the sustainability. More importantly the cost of the sensors would be the least, as the children themselves would assemble and provide to farmers.

The teachers are also proud that the children are able to learn about their environment and also applied technologies, otherwise they would rarely

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learn in their life. The children were very much fascinated with the sensors technology and their learning was very quick due to their interest.

This is an innovative initiative under the ClimaAdapt Project involving school children, in many projects implemented children are not considered as stakeholders.

The involvement of children in the project was the main idea of Er. L. Narayan Reddy, Director General, WALAMTARI. The sensors are developed at WALAMTARI, by the team which was lead by Dr. N. Sai Bhaskar Reddy, Coordinator, ClimaAdapt Project. At present a “Sensors Park” is established at WALAMTARI first of its kind in India. A sensors lab was also established at WALAMTARI, under the Climate Cell.

Additional information

The ClimaAdapt Project is being implemented through Farmers Organizations and in a cluster approach covering a group of villages in each cluster or a group of farms in certain cases of demonstration. 6 WUAs (20,989 Acres) under Distributary Committee (DC)-4 of Nagarjuna Sagar Project Left Canal (NSLC) area in Telangana State and 9 WUAs (23,841 Acres) under Distributary Committee (DC)-21 of Nagarjuna Sagar Project Right Canal (NSRC) area in Andhra Pradesh were selected for implementing ClimaAdapt project.

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I N D I A

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NagarjunasagarCommand area

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Krishna Basin

NSPL, DC 4, Nalgonda district

NSPR, DC 21, Guntur district