Hi all,
Please see the mail below from Sanskriti Menon, director of Center for
Environmental Education (a non-profit organization). They're organizing a
week-long workshop on sustainability and environmental issues for students
from various colleges. One of the sessions they would like to conduct is
about the possibility of using wikis for collecting environmental
information, and was wondering whether there is someone in Pune who can
conduct such a session. Specifically, what is needed is:
I wanted to know if there is anyone in the Pune
Wikipedia Community (or
others) who could help us with the session.
My plan for the session is somewhat like this:
1. Need for information on local environmental quality, generated and
maintained over time, for improved environmental management and governance
(this part and point 2 and 3 would be done by me)
2. Lack of such information
3. Possibility of students and faculty from colleges and other citizens
generating, recording and maintaining such information (the students in our
workshop would have done field work on collecting data on soil, water and
biodiversity)
4. The suitability of wiki-based platforms (whether it is wikipedia,
wikia, wikispaces, or any other platform) for this purpose
5. Wikipedia protocols/ SOPs - what is considered 'valid information' and
why - I am sure there are discussions among the Wikipedia community members
about this, and it would be useful to understand the various points of view
around the nature and quality of information as this can help students
understand the need for accuracy; it would also be useful to bring in
contrarian points of view about 'expert knowledge' drawing from the social
sciences
6. Practical work on wiki editing
It would be very helpful for us if you could suggest
some resource persons
who have a wider view of information and can provide the
practical skills of
wiki editing.
More details about the workshop are in the mail included below.
I would also like to point out that Sanskriti is also one of the primary
drivers behind the Pune Governance Wiki (
http://government.wikia.com/wiki/Pune).
Please let us know if you can help, or if you can suggest the name of
someone else who could.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sanskriti Menon <sanskriti.menon(a)ceeindia.org>
Date: Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 11:09 AM
Subject: wiki
To: Navin Kabra <navin.kabra(a)gmail.com>
Dear Navin,
Centre for Environment Education (CEE) is collaborating with the Mahindra
United World College MUWCI to offer a week long workshop on environment and
sustainability for students from various UWC colleges, from 20 to 25 June
2011.
We would like to introduce the idea that colleges can contribute to
generating information over the years about the environmental status of
their own campus as well as the surrounds - villages/ neighbourhood/ towns
etc. Such information can be generated through both curricular and extra
curricular activities and could include for instance, demographic datas ,
status of water supply, sewerage, waste management, biodiversity, etc. CEE
has been working with colleges and schools for environmental quality
monitoring projects. We would like to go beyond and try and get the students
to record such information over time. Dr Madhav Gadgil has often suggested
that a wiki-based information system would be good for this so that batches
of students (and others too) could upload the information they collect and
eventually trends become visible. As you know, we did also try to create
such an interface for Pune citizens over wikia.
I came across the Wikimedia Campus Ambassadors Program to be piloted in
Pune, and I have applied to be a part if it too. While I guess that
initiative will take its own course, I was wondering if you or anyone
associated with the campus ambassadors programme could actually share the
idea and run a short training/ orientation session within the MUWCI
workshop. The good dates for such a session are 20 and 21 June, late evening
(say 6 pm or 830 pm). Do you think this is possible?
Sanskriti
--
Sanskriti Menon
Programme Director
CEE Central Regional Cell and CEE Urban
Centre for Environment Education
A 10 Garden Estate, 167/1 Nagras Road
Aundh, Pune 411007
Ph: 020 25887009, 25898447, 9822455250
sanskriti.menon(a)ceeindia.org
www.greenteacher.org,
www.ceeindia.org