1. FESTIVALS BILLABONG HIGH INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL

2. Do festivals & celebrations in our families and communities show respect and tolerance for various cultures and religions?

3. RESEARCH METHODS Interviewing and asking people to fill out questionnaires were out 2 main means of gathering information. We believe that information we collect online may either be biased or factually incorrect. This drove us to collect our own information, interpret it, and form our own unique conclusions Besides handing out questionnaires, Each member conducted interviewed of individuals from various cultures and beliefs. This why we believe our research is compressive and diverse.

4. PEOPLE INTERVIEWED NameAge Aditya shankaraman17 Ranjini Krishnaswamy72 Aryaman tulpule16 Andrea Atkins35 Manisha joshi44 Anita Ravi45 Rajashri Rane37

5. THESE ARE SOME OF THE STANDOUT QUESTIONS FROM OUT QUESTIONNAIRE Which festival do you think is the most significant? Which is your favorite festivals? Which religion do you belong to?

7. HERES SOME INFORMATION ON THE FESTIVALS WE RESEARCHED

8. NAVRATRI Navaratri is a festival dedicated to the worship of the Hindu deity Durga. The word Navaratri means 'nine nights' in Sanskrit, nava meaning nine and ratri meaning nights. During these nine nights and ten days, nine forms of Devi are worshiped. The beginning of spring and the beginning of autumn are considered to be important junctions of climatic and solar influences. These two periods are taken as sacred opportunities for the worship of the Divine Mother Durga. The dates of the festival are determined according to the lunar calendar. on which each women follow tradition to wear nine colours of dress on Navaratri.

9. DIWALI It is since ancient times that Diwali has been celebrated. It is not easy to say now what really was the reason behind its origin. Different people believe different events to be the cause behind this festival. There are ten mythical and historical reasons that are possibly behind the Diwali (Deepavali) celebrations. The most well known story behind Diwali is in the Ramayana, the great Hindu epic. According to Ramayana, Rama, the prince of Ayodhya was ordered by his father, King Dasharatha, to go away from his country and come back after living in the forest for fourteen years. So Rama went on exile with his devoted wife Sita and faithful brother, Lakshmana. When Ravana, the demon king of Lanka abducted Sita and took her away to his island kingdom of Lanka, Rama fought against and killed Ravana. He rescued Sita and returned to Ayodhya after fourteen years. The people of Ayodhya were very happy to hear of their beloved prince's homecoming. To celebrate Rama's return to Ayodhya, they lit up their houses with earthen lamps (diyas), burst crackers and decorated the entire city in the grandest manner. Which is exactly how diwali is celebrated today

10. EID-UL-FITR Eid-al-Fitr is also called as the Eid-ul-Fitr, Idul-Fitr or Ramzan Id which indicates the end of Ramadan month means the month of fasting. This is the most religious and holy festival for the people that belongs to the Muslim religion during which they break their fast People celebrate Eid by coming together as a family and spend time with their loved ones and praying namaz

11. CHRISTMAS Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed most commonly on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. People celebrate Christmas by coming together as a family and spend time with their loved ones

12. So what are the values portrayed in these festivals? From the interviews we conducted observed we noticed a trend. All festivals teach us the value of togetherness and how important spending time with loved ones is.Another teaching is how important the continuation of tradition is. What do other cultures think of these celebrations? In India People of other cultures come together well during celebrations. For example this year Eid and Ganesh chaturti overlapped. During the festival, Hindus paused their celebrations to let 13,000 Muslims pray their namaz

13. FESTIVAL CELEBRATIONS IS SCHOOLS In billabong high we celebrate festivals. It helps teach students values and tradition as well as being fun For example, This diwali students made rangoli (designs made with colorful sand)

14. GRANDPARENTS INTERVIEW When we interview our grandparents we asked them one question “how has festivals celebrations changed?” here’s the differences they cited Festivals have become louder (fire crackers) Celebrations have become grander People of other religions celebrate too

15. CONCLUSION In our research it was obvious that people are tolerant and respectful towards other culture’s celebrations. Furthermore, people even celebrated in festivals that are from other cultures. It just goes to show how well people get together in India despite conflict of interests and idolgies.