Earth Day: Sharjah art teacher gives a green twist to kids' creativity

Sharjah - She started taking online video sessions where she helped 300 of her students create unique Earth Day gifts for their family and friends.

From the past several years, art teacher Rashida Adil has always made a point to have big celebrations on Earth Day that falls on April 22.
And this year, her plans of getting the students involved together in making creative things out of recycled material at school to mark the 50th Earth Day were thrown out of gear because of Covid-19. However, she started taking online video sessions where she helped 300 of her students create unique Earth Day gifts for their family and friends.
"Every year, my students and I would prepare meaningful art pieces using recycled materials. This year since we couldn't be together due to school closures, I knew I had to lead by example to motivate these teenagers (Grade 8 students) to create art pieces from waste materials at home. So, as soon as the lockdown in the UAE began, I used that time to create a handmade carpet in the shape of our planet Earth using pieces of discarded rope for the 50th Earth Day. The carpet looked beautiful and this got the students all excited to take up their new project for Earth Day which was to take out their old T-shirts and paint them with Earth Day messages," said Rashida, who has been teaching art to the boys of Sharjah Indian School, Juwaiza, for several years now.
Rashida managed to motivate 300 students to use their old T-Shirts and imprint their pair of hands on it with a uniform message: "These hands will love the Earth."
Rashida, who teaches art to about 15 sections of Grade 8 at Sharjah Indian School, said she had been taking online video classes for all the sections for the past three weeks, where she herself painted T-shirts and showed the boys how to do it.
The students have now painted and decorated their old T-shirts with a uniform Earth Day message. The students will wear these T shirts and take a pledge in Zoom meetings that Rashida will conduct on April 22.
Apart from the T-shirts, students have also made planet Earth replicas on recycled paper with Earth Day messages that they will be holding in their hands and taking a pledge to protect their planet by reducing, reusing and recycling.
The Indian expat who has been teaching art for 28 years now in the UAE said: "Although I am an art teacher, my main aim is to educate children about the importance of reducing, reusing, recycling waste and creating beautiful things. Through these beautiful artworks they create with scrap materials, they are learning to reduce and reuse waste."
Rashida has also made 50 gifts out of recycled juice bottles decorated with recyclable materials and turned into art pieces. She will gift them to her neighbours on the occasion of the Earth Day as well as Ramadan. "I have also encouraged my students to do the same and make creative gifts from waste material and gift it to their near and dear ones," she added.
saman@khaleejtimes.com 

• Sharjah