Drip Irrigation and Waste Management

1. DESIGN FOR CHANGE
SCHOOL CHALLENGE 2012
SUBMISSION FORM
Name of School:Agakhan Youth And Sports Board For Pallavaram
Address: C2 SILVER JUBILEE CO-OPERATIVE HOUSING SOCIETY,P V
VAITHYALINGAM ROAD,OLD PALLAVARAM CHENNAI-600117
Name of Mentor Teacher: sohail
Names of Students (core team): Sherize hamirani, afsha, amina,
shahana mohammed hussain, ishaan kurlawala, muskaan kurlawala.
Tel.:9880650047
E-mail: smartsohail_123@yahoo.com
Give a title to your story of change. (For example, if it's a change story
on getting people to wash hands to promote health you might want to
title it “Health is Wealth”.):
Grow plants –Drip irrigation & waste management
The week in which it was implemented: may 5th to Sep 20th

2. FEEL
A. In groups, take a walk around your school / community and
OBSERVE carefully what issues bother you and what you will like to
change for the better.
(Example of issues that have bothered children – dirty
bathrooms/bullying/ broken infrastructure/saving trees and animals /
dull classrooms...)
B. TALK to the people involved or who are affected by the situation to
find out more about what is causing the problem.
List the situations/problems in your school/community that bothered
you:
There are lots of issues that bother us and a few bother us the most
when we see and come across issues like cutting down of trees, people
littering all around the city, wastage of water and electricity, and
people struggling for food cost of living going high , right knowledge of
growing fruits vegetables and grains and lots more …
Who was affected by the situation/problem and what did they say?
We are affected by all this directly or indirectly we don’t think about it
in our daily lives but when we sit on the issues we have so much
happening around us they look so big that nothing can be done.
DON'T FORGET to document each step with
photographs/video/comments from students, teachers and people
affected so you can inspire others.
IMAGINE
A. VOTE for the one problem that you will all like to see changed.

3. B. BRAINSTORM your solutions keeping these points in mind:
1. Quickest impact
2. Maximum people impacted
3. Potential for long lasting change
C. Now VOTE for the solution that you would like to implement.
State the problem you chose and why did you CHOOSE it?
Drip irrigation & waste management was something we wanted to
work on this time we wanted to explore get knowledge and share the
same with people whom this could help in their lives also gave
knowledge about the same. And also for people to understand how
difficult it is to grow the food that we eat everyday, so that we respect
it. And also learn to take care of our environment.
List the different solutions you came up with and which one did you
choose to implement and why?
1. Wanted to explore in detail on how plants grow and what would
help it grow better.
2. share the information with the ones it would help also the one
who would get knowledge and respect the hard work that goes
in.
3. we would visit farms where we could see this happen practically
and gain more knowledge that we could share.
4. Learn more and share about garbage segregation and hygiene.
DO
A. What resources will you need to implement your solution?
1. How many people will you need?
2. Would you need money and how will you raise the same (for example
- organize fun fairs, charity cricket matches/sport events, auctions, offer

4. skill workshops, organize dance/music shows....)
3. Will you need to organize transport? Who will you ask?
4. Will you need permissions - from school / home / any other
government or private organizations?
B. Now - Go ‘BE THE CHANGE’ YES! YOU CAN!!!
1. This is our story of CHANGE! (Don’t forget to include the key highlights
of your journey. Include challenges, successes and how YOU all were
CHANGED) Please add page/s if needed.
This is our story of CHANGE!
We had our 1st meet with our seniors who told us what the program was
and also what we children are capable of doing. We had a very small
group we came heard them and left. We were not sure if we can really
do something so just did not bother thinking about it. When we were
called again for a meeting to take updates we were not too sure as we
could not do much on it.But due respect we went for the meeting. We
were again told what children of our age are doing to make changes we
were still not sure we were asked to sit in group and give it a thought.
when our group came together we came up with so many issues . we
also thought back that last year a few had worked on garbage clearance
in the colonies and streets around and how that changed mind sets of
people we decided to take up something that would educate people give
knowledge of something that is about their own life. So we came up
with topics like guidance on how to waste management, save electricity,
water and also on guidance of our food that we eat everyday how it
comes from where it comes and the process of fruits and vegetables.
some of us do not know how all this is done we wake up eat work eat
sleep. But we still don’t know the process so we took up drip irrigation. It
shows us how the water is saved up in huge underground wells and
passed on to the fruits and vegetables that we intake everyday. We do
learn about it in school but we did not have enough details so we spoke
to our teachers and surf the internet and took out all information.
DRIP IRRIGATION SYSTEM
Drip irrigation is used by farms, commercial greenhouses, and
residential gardeners. Drip irrigation is adopted extensively in
areas of acute water scarcity and especially for crops such
ascoconuts, containerized landscape

5. trees, grapes, bananas, eggplant, citrus, strawberries, sugarcane,
cotton, maize, and tomatoes.
drip irrigation may help achieve water conservation by
reducing evaporation and deep drainage when compared to other
types of irrigation such as flood or overhead sprinklers since water
can be more precisely applied to the plant roots. In addition, drip
can eliminate many diseases that are spread through water
contact with the foliage. Finally, in regions where water supplies
are severely limited, there may be no actual water savings, but
rather simply an increase in production while using the same
amount of water as before. In very arid regions or on sandy soils,
the preferred method is to apply the irrigation water as slowly as
possible. Drip and subsurface drip irrigation is used almost
exclusively when using recycled municipal waste water.
Regulations typically do not permit spraying water through the air
that has not been fully treated to potable water standards.
Working of Drip Irrigation System:
Drip irrigation systems consist of emission devices serviced by a
water distribution network that includes control zone equipment. At
the water source, water is controlled with automatic valves,
sometimes amended with nutrients or chemicals, filtered and
regulated at levels suitable for the emission devices chosen and
plants being grown. From there, water is delivered to each of the
emission devices through a network of PVC and PE pipes. The
emission device, whether it is drip tape, a drip emitter, jet or micro-
sprinkler, then delivers water and nutrients to the soil where plant
roots may nourish the plant. All components have attributes that
affect performance, and that are traded off with initial, installation,
operation and maintenance costs.
The advantages of drip irrigation are:
 Fertilizer and nutrient loss is minimized due to localized
application and reduced leaching.
 Water application efficiency is high.
 Field levelling is not necessary.
 Fields with irregular shapes are easily accommodated.
 Recycled non-potable water can be safely used.

6.  Moisture within the root zone can be maintained at field
capacity.
 Soil type plays less important role in frequency of irrigation.
 Soil erosion is minimized.
 Weed growth is minimized.
 Water distribution is highly uniform, controlled by output of
each nozzle.
 Labour cost is less than other irrigation methods.
 Variation in supply can be regulated by regulating the valves
and drippers.
 Fertigation can easily be included with minimal waste of
fertilizers.
 Foliage remains dry, reducing the risk of disease.
 Usually operated at lower pressure than other types of
pressurised irrigation, reducing energy costs.
The disadvantages of drip irrigation are:
 Expense: initial cost can be more than overhead systems.
 Waste: the sun can affect the tubes used for drip irrigation,
shortening their usable life.
 Clogging: if the water is not properly filtered and the
equipment not properly maintained, it can result in clogging.
 Drip irrigation might be unsatisfactory if herbicides or top
dressed fertilizers need sprinkler irrigation for activation.
 Drip tape causes extra cleanup costs after harvest. Users
need to plan for drip tape winding, disposal, recycling or reuse.
 Waste of water, time and harvest, if not installed properly.
These systems require careful study of all the relevant factors
like land topography, soil, water, crop and agro-climatic
conditions, and suitability of drip irrigation system and its
components.

7.  Germination problems: in lighter soils subsurface drip may
be unable to wet1 the soil surface for germination. Requires
careful consideration of the installation depth.
 Salinity: most drip systems are designed for high efficiency,
meaning little or no leaching fraction. Without sufficient
leaching, salts applied with the irrigation water may build up in
the root zone, usually at the edge of the wetting pattern. On the
other hand, drip irrigation avoids the high capillary potential of
traditional surface-applied irrigation, which can draw salt
deposits up from deposits below.
We got detailed information on advantages and disadvantages of drip
irrigation. We ourselves realized all the hard work and process that goes
in to growing what we eat. We sometimes make faces for the food we
do not like but farmers really struggle to make that. We shared all this
information to people we could reach to with pictures and charts .We
then spread awareness on hygiene and waste management we also
enacted a play on this to put it across to them in a different way to make
it more interesting and entertaining. We took it to a next level from
garbage clearance that we had done last year we spread more
information extended to people we had not reached to last year. We
gathered more information more crowd and spread awareness on how
peoples heath get affected with garbage thrown all around and whats
the best way to segregate.We tried out bit we could. Hope the message
spreads as fast as light and people realize the importance on the right
way to grow plants and benefits of this.
DON’T FORGET to include the key highlights of your journey. Include
challenges, successes and how YOU all were CHANGED) Please add
page/s if needed.