00:00This is the area that we started our gardening. In 2015 we had only this 50 square meters of land and this was the only tree that we had at that time.
00:27Now we have expanded into different areas and we have around 150 varieties of fruits and vegetables in the school.
00:36And we have only the sideways, the food parks, the roundabout, the nearby wasteland, rooftop, we have kept a number of pots.
00:45The entire rooftop is now converted into vegetable garden.
00:50When we started in 2015, we had these vertical gardens, two stands we had. From there we moved to other types of gardening.
00:58Here we find now organic gardening where we use organic manure.
01:03And from organic garden, we moved to hydroponic garden. You find there are two different types.
01:10All these are made from waste materials. So we combined recycling plus gardening.
01:15We have also installed aquaponics system. So this is actually the idea that students gave and we just practically implemented them.
01:26And from aquaponics, we also have implemented a system of aeroponics garden. So students are aware of all the different types of gardening that is available now.
01:37This is a tank that is used to collect AC drain water. And we have collected almost all the ACs of the school to different tanks.
01:45And this tank collects almost 1000 liters of water every day. And we have other tanks that also collect around 4000 liters.
01:54So daily our collection of AC drain water is 5000 liters, which is used for gardening. We use for irrigation.
02:02And sometimes we also, if the water is more, we use that for cleaning purposes.
02:07We have expanded our garden to the rooftop as well. So this is the first floor and even in the second floor we have the same.
02:14We have kept around 500 pots with all vegetable plants. In 2015 when we started our crop was 1500 kilograms.
02:23From there, now we have more than 100,000 kilograms of vegetables for every year.
02:32This is an app that our students of grade 11 have developed. Now this is used for collecting the vegetables, recording their kilograms.
02:41And then also parents can go to the app. They can find how much is available. They can order it.
02:48And once they place the order, security will keep ready in the security cabin. And sometimes it will be collected by the students.
02:55It has been 10 years since we started this vertical gardens in our school. And it has been growing year by year.
03:04And this year we have produced 100,000 kilograms of fruits and vegetables. Now it's nothing but a miracle that can happen in such a small place in a school that is crowded, which has over 3,700 children.
03:18But the fact is, every child takes ownership of this garden. It belongs to individuals. It belongs to each and every person.
03:27Because everyone has contributed to the growth of this garden. As a school leader, we have integrated this project into the curriculum.
03:36And it has been embedded. So the primary children have a vertical garden walk every week.
03:43And they see how the plants grow, how birds and bees pollinate these fruits and ensure that they are measuring the growth.
03:53And they are recording these growth elements of the garden into their record books.
03:59So every part of it has been integrated and children are really enjoying the vibes of this garden.
04:08And I personally, I think the student voices, the chatter in the school helps the plants to grow better.
04:18Now, another thing that the children have done is they have done multiple projects to see whether the plants grow better in this area of the garden.
04:27The senior school students have also done projects where they have measured the impact of carbon monoxide on the growth of plants.
04:35So this is how children have integrated the vertical gardens into their academic learning aspect.
04:43Apart from this, we have also invited other schools and students from many other CBSE schools and international schools have come to us.
04:52They have learned this concept of how to grow their own food, the vegetables, in the limited spaces that we have in Dubai.
05:00We also ran a grow your own food competition with our students and parents.
05:05And they had to track the growth of their vegetable plants through photographs and record it and show it to us.
05:11And we had some great winners in the program.
05:15So we integrated, we involved parents into this project as well.
