One moment the auditorium at Sanskriti School (Delhi) was transformed into an estuary, the next moment it became an evergreen forest. No! No! No magic involved here!
WWF, World Wide Fund for Nature – India, conducted the National Level quiz of the Wild Wisdom Quiz in Delhi on 18th November, 2009. The focus was on wildlife of India.
Twelve teams consisting of two students each were selected from Tamil Nadu, Mumbai, Shimla, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Kerala, Orissa, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Bhopal, Delhi and Goa. Two students from Sir Sivaswami Kalalaya, Chennai represented Tamil Nadu. These teams were selected through the state level rounds which were conducted earlier.
All teams had to reach Delhi on 17th. They got to know each other and in the evening most of them were seen reading together for the grand finale next day. They were also taken to Lodhi Gardens for a bird walk.
Rajat Bhargav, who is a naturalist, showed the students interesting birds such as Alexandrine Parakeet, Rose ring parakeet, sun bird, Asian pie starling, common myna, blue rock pigeon and jungle babblers, and trees such as flossel tree, papry tree and many more. The students also saw the newly introduced butterfly garden in the Lodhi Gardens.
Next day, after breakfast, people from WWF, Delhi office, took all the teams and their teacher escorts in a bus to Sanskriti School. The preliminary elimination round was held where all the teams had to a write a test containing 50 multiple choice questions in 5 minutes. After many ties, 5 teams were selected from these 12 teams for the finals which was held on the same day.
The quizmaster was Cyrus Sahukar from MTV and the chief guest was Ekta Chowdury. he teams were given the names Asian elephant, Otter, Tiger, Great Indian one-horned rhino, and Whale shark. Pictures of these animals, made by the Sanskriti School students, were displayed in front of each team.
There were many interesting rounds such as ‘Pick your pick’, audio round, visual round, rapid fire round and many more. Some of the questions were “Which is the tallest flying bird?” for which the answer in the Great Indian Sarus Crane. Then pictures of various birds
and snakes and their names were given, and the students had to match them, which was a bit difficult.
In between the quiz, a short film made by Cyrus, which encourages people not to buy products made by killing animals and using their skin, bones, teeth, etc. was shown. At the end of this interesting and very informative quiz, the Mumbai team emerged as the winners followed by Kerala in the second position and Bhopal in the third position. They were given mementos by Cyrus and Ekta. All the 12 teams were given Tshirts and informative books about birds and some gifts.
After lunch at the school, the teams went to the WWF Office where they were shown a movie by WWF called “Jungle Gang Meets the Rhino” made by Krishnendu Bose, an eminent wildlife filmmaker, in association with Dharma Singh.
The next day the winners departed early in the morning for the Jim Corbett National Park in Nainital, a 6 hour drive from Delhi, which was their exciting prize trip. When asked about their trip, they told excitedly that they had spotted a tiger and swam in a waterfall. The other teams, after their own trips to the Delhi markets, Qutub minar, Birla house, Indra Prastha, etc. departed for their respective states with a lot of wildlife knowledge in their head!