“Why is the sky blue? Where do babies come from?”
Children are innately interested in how the world works. We all have the makings of a scientist at some age, but our urge to explore and to wonder is slowly killed through rote learning. How can we get students to revive their interest in science and enjoy this essential subject?
An enterprising organization, Agastya International Foundation (AIF) in rural India has some unique answers.
Ramji Raghavan, the founder of AIF, tapped the brains of India’s leading scientists to devise a model to bring resourceful, hands-on methods of teaching science to remote Indian villages. Its mission is to spark creativity in children in rural India. His organization is revolutionizing the way science is taught in the rural South.
Agastya runs about 20 science mobile science labs which travel across the south, teaching children science through experiments. The foundation equips its students with scientific knowledge, but more importantly, it teaches them to think independently.
Agastya uses simple, easily available, inexpensive tools which allow students to perform scientific experiments for themselves. In addition, students are taught to demonstrate experiments to other children, and persuaded to ask as well as answer questions. After all, science is as much about asking the right questions as it is about finding answers to them.
“I did not know much science, but through Agastya’s Mobile Lab experiments I have learned about the solar eclipse, lunar eclipse and how days, nights and seasons occur. Before Agastya I had never seen any lab equipment. Now I enjoy the thrill of using the tools of science and explaining things to others.” says Danamma, a 14 year old student from Kuppam, one of the South’s rural districts.
These novel mobile labs provide education at the doorstep of children in rural India who have no access to formal teaching. Each lab reaches 50,000 children per year and has inspired millions of children, instilling in them that spark of ingenuity and scientific observation which is so desperately needed in India today.
Raghavan has the right idea. India needs more such low cost, flexible models which focus on teaching science by “learning through doing “. If these techniques can ignite a science revolution in rural India with such limited resources, what heights can it reach in a city with plenty of innovation and capital such as ours? The country has to unite to foster vision and experimentation in today’s young minds.
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