As many as 75,000 students from approximately 1,400 schools in India and overseas will participate in the Green Olympiad, the country’s first environmental examination for school children.

Jointly organised by The Energy Research Institute (TERI), the Ministry of Forest and Environment and Hero Honda Motors Ltd, Green Olympiad is an annual initiative focusing attention on environmental concerns and needs of the present and the future. 

The event, first initiated by TERI in 1999, will have questions designed to test knowledge of students evolving from environment topics of daily concern such as water, energy, air, forest, biodiversity, climate and sustainable development. Children from all parts of India and also from Indian schools abroad participate.
Hero Honda has instituted the Hero Honda Green Ambassadors Award for the Champions of Terraquiz, the culmination event of the Green Olympiad.

Over the years, Green Olympiad has proved to be an excellent tool to create awareness amongst children on various environmental issues, reaching out even to remote corners of the country, where children get limited opportunities to participate in such an extensive exercise. Winners receive awards and recognition for their performance. This includes both individual prizes for students and awards for the schools. Special merit certificates are also awarded by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, which has been actively supporting the programme for the past several years.

Last year saw participation of 60,795 students from 1165 schools from across the country and abroad. Schools from around 450 cities, towns and districts participated in the contest from India. These were clearly from many remote parts of the country.

According to TERI, the Indian society is waking up to the call of ‘environmentalists’ urging citizens to take a more proactive approach for protection of nature and natural resources. For a sustainable and healthy way of living, people need to be aware about the pros and cons of each of their actions on the environment. This awareness in turn needs to be created and built up amongst all levels of the society, to see a meaningful change in our surroundings. Children are the caretakers of planet Earth and investing in them today ensures a more habitable planet.

The Green Olympiad has made a place for itself in the academic calendar of the schools. Children are aware of pressing environment issues, which need to be addressed. They relate their day-to-day activities to the changes that they see and experience around them. The information that they gain through participation in the Olympiad is clearly translated into environment improvement activities at the school level.

The Green Olympiad culminates in Terraquiz every year, a multi-episode environment quiz programme for television, which is telecast on DD National. The top seven schools from each zone and four top schools from the international zone, i.e 32 schools are selected for this national environment quiz. The winners of this quiz show are crowned ‘Hero Honda Green Ambassadors’ for the year. 

These ambassadors carry the message of environmental awareness among fellow students. With this accomplishment this project has carved a niche for itself in the realm of environment globally in creating a unique environment educational platform.