Hi! I am Pranav and I live in Jaipur also known as Pink city. I am a 12th-grade student and I enjoy sketching. Here’s a case study for my application to the Strate school of design.

My background

I live in Jaipur, in front of lake Mansagar. Lake Mansagar is a man-made lake between the hills of Aravali. It’s famous for Jalmahal, the palace in the middle of the lake. The best thing I like about living here at the edge of the lake is its Greenery and the birds which are found around it. As compared to other kids of my age, I can easily say I have seen more kinds of birds and can identify them. Just like common myna, red-vented bulbul, white-throated kingfisher and many other birds can be found around Jalmahal. In winter seasons, migrating birds such as Siberian cranes and pelicans can also be seen from my home. But even after seeing all these birds, I am more proud in saying that I have also seen a lot of sparrows around my house.

When I was a child I remember putting water for them on my terrace during my holidays. They used to be plenty in number and I would love to hear their chirpings in the morning. They used to make nests around my house and give birth in those nests. I would wait for the sparrow to bring food for its babies, and when they would take their heads out for food which looked very cute and had innocence like a human baby. I would spend most of the day doing this. As the human habitats started increasing around my home, I started to notice fewer sparrow nests around my house. Gradually their population is decreasing, and I couldn’t do anything about that. Now when I got an opportunity to work on a problem statement for my college application at Strate school of design, I picked up this.

Problem Statement

House sparrow, one of the most common birds in the Indian subcontinent, has been getting rarer day by day and the difference is easily visible in the urban areas.

1. Understanding the possible reasons behind the disappearance of this small bird.
2. Doing user interviews and gathering insights on people's awareness
3. Providing probable solutions as to how this problem can be tackled

Research

I did some preliminary research and found out following facts :

• House sparrow or Goraiya is a bird species of the sparrow family. This bird species can be spotted over two-thirds of the world's land surface because of human migration and exploration
• The only terrestrial habitats that the house sparrow does not inhabit are dense forests and tundra. It is adapted to living around humans.
• “The sparrows in India are endangered and still battling to reclaim their niche in their historical habitat range.

In the global identification of the status of the species according to the IUCN Red List, it is categorised as the ‘Least Concern’ or not being a focus of conservation.

“A healthy population of these birds has disappeared in urban areas because of habitat issues created by urbanization. With the disappearance, their ecological role is gone,” said Sudipto Chatterjee, Associate Professor, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) School of Advanced Studies

• Use of ACs has replaced ventilators, ornamental plants and decorative flower shrubs in parks have replaced trees, buildings now devoid of leaves and crannies, and kitchen gardens have disappeared, all this has made it impossible for sparrows to make nests.
• All these changes are because of the increase in population, here is some data on the population increase in my hometown Jaipur.

Jaipur’s population has grown 166% from 1950 to 2022 and is still growing at rate of 2.47%

Questionnaire

After doing some secondary research I approached a few people to understand the problem better. But before the interviews, I jolted down questions that I needed to ask the people I approached. I started with a pool and then narrowed down the number so as not to overwhelm the interviewees. I also kept the interview conversational, keeping the questionnaire as a broad frame.