How to plan for an awareness session (2024)

There are thousands of ways to plan for a classroom awareness session to introduce students to ecosystems. It depends on the region, culture, medium of instruction, the resource person’s style and, mostly importantly, the age group and content. But, one indelible fact to remember in today’s scenario is, every session must provide an experience for the students and not mere dissemination of information.

The planning phase to conduct an awareness session can be compared to a chef taking stock of all the ingredients needed to make your favourite dish, an astronaut doing groundwork for a space sojourn, and a filmmaker choosing the right equipment and accessories for a shoot.

Here are 8 pointers that I keep in mind for a 40 to 60-minutes session that involves screening a documentary or using a deck of slides followed by an interaction. These have worked for me, after having conducted 200+ awareness programs on nature and environment in schools.

These are the five key questions I reflect upon when I plan a session, whether I was notified of it just the night before or a few weeks back.

Why am I doing this session?

Who is my audience?

What should be the desired learning outcome?

How should the students feel when they leave the class?

What should I say when I conclude the session?

Once I answer these questions, I work backwards.

In a recent workshop that I co-conducted at Maha Sarakham University in Thailand, I was talking about different camera angles that are used to tell an effective visual story. As I was leaving the room, the next professor tied in my session with an introduction on how these shots compositions can be used for social marketing, which was her class. As you can see, this ensures flow.

“Coherence between topics is extremely important. Keeping a fluid framework is a great way to ensure that flow is maintained.”

Compiling a factsheet and verifying them comes to aid in two ways. a) When students or teachers ask questions about the source of the facts/data, we will know where to point out. b) While in front of an audience, with enthusiasm, we might want to provide all the information/knowledge we know. In such a scenario,

“Distilling the facts and compiling them as a sheet helps not to go off tangent from the topic.”

Giving a local context to the audience is extremely important, because students can relate to what’s happening in their backyard much better than what’s happening outside. For example, when I talk about climate change in Hawai’i, I look for the the local data of sea level rise, and everything that’s relevant to the topic. When in Rajapalayam, I ask people about water shortage and other pressing environmental issues. So,

“No matter what the session is, collecting information from local resource people, news dailies and the internet will come handy to make the session as relatable as possible to the students.”

When showing a documentary, it’s better to play it once the previous day to ensure there are no glitches. When using a slide deck, it’s advisable to check if the flow is right.

“The last thing we would want to happen when creating an experience is a technical stumbling block!”

Do not to overload students with information right from climate change to air pollution, from anthropocene to eco-bricks, and from evolution to economic benefits of saving forests, unless they can all be weaved as a narrative in a way students understand the co-relation.

“Remember. Less is more.”

Leaving students in Limbo is the worst thing that can happen, especially when an external resource person comes in for a day to talk about the environment. So,

“It’s pertinent to keep a few reliable resources and verified website links handy so that they can be given to students during the session.”

Spontaneity comes by practice unless you are gifted public speaker! So, practice and get feedback. Sometimes, its better to run through the flow with one person. I run it through with my mom, who is totally away from the topic. If she didn’t get a few points, I go back to the drawing board.

“Practice is everything.”

Finally, we must keep in mind to plan the awareness session with the learner (the students) at its centre and the content on environment, forests and wildlife tailored for them, and not the other way.