Under the Project Based Learning Programme, Grade 4 & 5 students and teachers initiated a project on 'Energy Saving'.

As part of this project an event by the name 'GIS Lights Out Day' was carried in the school today,4th July 2013.

Inspired by Earth Hour 2012, the goal of this campaign is to raise awareness about school wide energy consumption and to show the amount of energy and costs that can be saved through such a quick and easy act as turning off the lights.

To be more precise, no lights were on throughout the day. In addition to this, devices, equipments and appliances that project light were not in use. To ensure that the lights were out from all four corners of the school, the students of 5B monitored the whole school during every period throughout the session. They also checked the current meter before the session started and after the session ended even.

The students of Grade 4 & 5 have been working on their ‘energy saving’ project starting from the last week of May. Upto today, they have worked on different areas such as collecting information on various kinds of energy saving lights, doing experiments on incandescent and fluorescent bulbs, checking the current meter and switching off lights and fans whenever not in use. Different classes were assigned different tasks and students prepare presentations to share what they have done. These sharings took place during the special assembly time which is the first period of every Tuesday. During their last special assembly, the students have also tried to convince the management to change the lights in the school to LED lights because LED lights can save up to 85 percent of the electricity used by incandescent bulbs and up to 50 percent of electricity used by fluorescents. Hence, students will continue their tasks until the end of Ramazan and this means the ‘lights out day’ will also be carried out on every Thursday.

In support of this project and to encourage the ‘lights out day’, the staff of the school have decided not use any lights during the special feast they have tonight to welcome the arrival of Ramazan. The school management also encouraged all staff for being part of this event today.

Along with the students of Grade 4 & 5 who voice out to conserve energy in order to survive tomorrow, the staff of the school believe that small tasks such as switching off the lights and fans when not in use would make a difference. If all schools in Male’, in fact in the country believe in the same, we believe that Maldives can also give its contribution to save the world from the global challenges we face today.