Children from a Thiruvananthapuram based school emerged winners at an inter-school wildlife quiz competition across the country that aimed at increasing the environmental awareness among youth through various themes associated with conservation.
The quiz, for middle school students was organised by Discovery Kids along with WWF-India and conducted by MTV VJ Cyrus Sahukar.
After a closely fought battle spanning four rounds among five teams on stage, 12-year-olds, Aaron Dev Jose and Puja Bijoy from L'ecole Chemnaka School, Thiruvananthapuram emerged winners pipping their nearest opponents by a narrow margin of 10 points.
The event was the culmination of a national level competition held across 30 cities in India.
"I am really excited and happy on the progress we made. I am also happy for the other teams which made it to this stage. The quiz was really challenging and the questions were such that you had to wrack your brain," said Aaron who is a class 8 student.
"It was really interesting. We did not feel nervous at all because the quizmaster (Cyrus) was being really funny all through the quiz," said his teammate Puja a student of the seventh class.
Speaking on the endeavour, CEO of WWF-India Ravi Singh, said, "The quiz goes beyond being just a competition and stokes children's sense of wonder towards nature. We believe that we will be able to take this quiz to an increasing number of schools and children every year, helping create future conservationists who will take the mission forward."
Commenting on the importance of such events Rohit Johri, Executive Vice-President of Discovery Kids said, "The nationwide quiz aims to create a strong connect amongst students towards nature and wildlife. Such initiatives help children in understanding the fragility of our natural environment and the importance of its protection."
Jeevesh C and Vignesh SK of Vidya Niketan School, Chennai and Arnav Gupta and Aniket Mishra of Arwachin International School, Delhi grabbed the second and third position respectively. Winners get an all expense-paid trip to a nature camp iin Rishikesh.
