THANE: World Sparrow Day , which was celebrated on March 20 across the globe was celebrated in a unique way in Thane 's Sankalp English School. Over 800 students from the school came together to build more than 1,100 sparrow homes and feeders (nests) using recycle waste like old notebooks, cardboards etc.The students from class V to IX, with the help of their craft teachers collected old notebooks, cardboard sheets and plastic bottles cut them up and glued them together in the shapes of small houses and beautifully painted them to attract small birds.They then placed bundles of twigs to make it comfortable for the sparrows and went around distributing these nests to the citizens in their vicinity as well as the civic education officers including the new mayor Meenakshi Shinde.Speaking about the idea, the school headmistress Jyoti Parab, said, "We have been teaching our children about the environment and conservation in their EVS subject for years, but I realised that this knowledge was often limited to the text book chapters and was forgotten by the end of the exams.""I wanted the students to have some practical knoweldege. I have around 25 feeders in my home on GB road which attracts many birds and I wanted to share this feeling with my students. That's how we started this excersise of making artificial nests for sparrows and other birds," she added. A team of five teachers supervised the students in the act."The students collected a lot old cardboard sheets, twigs and branches from gardens, plastic bottles and a lot of other waste items, which was used in making the sparrow houses. We then showed them the blueprint of a bird's nest and how it should be made in a way that they can access them. Once the main structure was made, they painted it with acrylic colours to attract the birds," said Pranali Giri, one of the craft teachers."We then took a rally around school chanting slogans on conserving sparrows. At the end of the day, the 800 odd students took the nest or feeder to their homes. The remaining 300 plus pieces were distributed to the people who met through the rally. We also gave one nest each to the new mayor Meenakshi Shinde, the primary and secondary education officers,"said Raj Parab, the school's trustee.

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