The announcement of the `Go Green` campaign brought a wave of joy that ran through the students. The room was filled with discussions and activity as soon as Miss Tina left the class. Everyone had ideas for the upcoming campaign.

The campaign invited the students to portray their creativity through planning different activities at nearby places that had lost their charm and beauty due to pollution and climate change. It required the students to participate in two groups. One group would work by the riverside and the other would revive a public garden.

Alena, who has always been a potamophile, immediately expressed her interest in joining the former group. Asad, who has always been a botanophile, joined the latter group with excitement.

On a bright Saturday morning, all the students, along with their teachers, excitedly reached their respective spots.The riverbank had always been one of Alena`s favourite places. But the spot, once serene and pristine, was now strewn with litter, plastic bags were floating on the river, there were dried plants by the riverside, and the biodiversity was almost destroyed. This left all the students in great distress. However, they were fuelled by the motivation of restoring the place`s charm, making it clean once more.

All the kids brainstormed ideas before starting on their work. The students organised a clean-up drive, wading along the banks and pulling the trash from the river with the helpof skimmer nets with long poles. Colourful recycling bins along the riverside were set up, all labelled with `Reduce, Reuse, Recycle`. They also designed posters and warning signs, showing how plastic pollution was harmful for fish and other wildlife, and posted them along the river-bank at various places.

Furthermore, the students worked with local environmentalists to create a rain garden by the river. They planted native flowering plants and grass that would soak up rainwaterbefore it could carry pollutants into the water. The riverside was brimming with energy during the environmen-tal campaign. Teachers encouraged everybody to use their full potential to bring life back to that place.

This activity continued for several weekends with great enthusiasm and later when the riverside was cleaner, the kids and the volunteers who had joined their campaign, designated different spots to different groups to continue monitoring and cleaning.

As for the other group, they selected the main city park, a popular public spot. But, over time, pollution had taken its toll on the park and it had lost most of its greenery and there was litter everywhere. Over the years, tomake space for new city structures, there had been deforestation and park`s size had shrunken to a much smaller green refuge for the visitors.

The students began to execute their ideas in no time. Drives were conducted, trash was collected in bags, native plants were planted to attract butterflies and birds back to the park. Awareness programmes were organised to guide the public about how all were responsible for building a safer and healthier environment.

But it didn`t take long for the students to realise that their steps to keep the park clean and green was not being very effective as visitors continued to litter without a care for the environment. The students were disheartened as their efforts seemed to be trivial in front of the challenges they faced. But with the teachers standing by them and energetic kids like Asad and Alena, everyone`s confidence was restored in taking smaller steps rather than wishing for giant leaps.

`Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together,` Asad encouraged them with this quote attributed to Vincent van Gogh.

The kids continued to look for the ways to conserve the environment.

They worked tirelessly, alongside their teachers to rehabilitate not only these places, but to also create a lasting impact on the surrounding areas.

The natural beauty of the riverside finally seemed to be reinstated and the garden soon became a symbol of the students` dedication to green living.

They had done it together, they had made a difference. And this was just the beginning.•