South City International School gave students of Kindergarten, Classes I and II problems like these and encouraged them to come up with solutions by recycling materials around them.

The idea is to help them think, innovate and simultaneously become more environment conscious by using things they find around them, said principal Satabdi Bhattacharjee.

The school held Kidspreneur, an event to showcase the creativity and entrepreneurial spirit of students by empowering children to present innovative business ideas, transforming them into tangible, sustainable market-ready products, last month.

“Our goal is to inspire a new generation of environmentally conscious entrepreneurs. The teachers gave them problems and encouraged them to come up with solutions on their own. We could have given them projects to make paperweights out of pebbles or use disposable cups for pen stands but instead, we wanted them to think and come up with a solution that would be viable and reduce waste,” said Bhattacharjee.

Some of them also used pencil shavings to decorate their cups.

On the day of the event, each group had a stall with the items that they had made. Each group came to the stage to explain their project, what they had made and what they had used. Parents were invited to go around the stalls and were given coupons to buy what they liked.

Before the event, the teachers had addressed the children about the need to reduce waste and how things that they use add to the waste that they generate. The children were told how plastic pollutes the environment.

“We asked them simple questions like how often their parents buy a phone and some of them said once a year. All these add to the waste that is generated,” a teacher said.

“Since they are children, we cannot sermonise but we try to explain to them in the form of stories so that it appeals to them,” the teacher said. “The children, through their creative ideas, showed us how small ideas can have a big impact.”