Science and Society !!

Science is a part of almost every aspect of our day to day life. From ages, science has been making impossible things possible and thus contributing to the development of human race. Spirit of science can be effectively continued in future generations if children study and appreciate science.

Learning through experiments is regarded as one of the best ways of stimulating a child's curiosity and interest in science. But as part of the current education system, science in school is most of the time taught only through class room lectures, thus killing the joy of studying science. Most of the time children learn principles in science through rote learning and reproduce it as boring facts. As a result of that, we rarely apply scientific principles in our daily lives in spite of studying it and we have a society that lacks scientific temper and awareness that gets easily carried away by superstitions. A pardigm shift is possible only when children consider science as fun and scientific thinking is inculcated right from school-age.

To address this issue Sugathi, Free Software Movement Karnataka (FSMK) and Bharath Gyan Vigyan Samiti (BGVS) jointly organized a state level science workshop in Bangalore on April 21st and April 22nd 2012 to train master resource persons in science related activities. Idea is to involve the resource persons trained in this workshop in summer science camps and other various activities to be organized for children from poor and under privileged backgrounds in different parts of Bangalore and Karnataka to teach basic science principles in an activity based manner.

On the first day, Mr.Sanjeev, a retired VSSR ISRO employee demonstrated basic physics principles through models built using household articles like empty talcum powder tins, pens, ice cream balls and straws wtc. After that there was a session on Origami, Japanese art of folding paper. This can be used to effectively teach mathematics and geometry to children.

Next day events started a session by Mr.Balaji from FSMK on free software tools available for enjoyable classroom education. Then Mr.Ravinder from Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) demonstrated fundamental optics principles and talked about astronomy. Workshop ended with volunteers developing their own models to teach scientific principles to children. 

It was a real enjoyment and fun to do basic science experiments again. But at the same time it was sad to accept that many of us, never understood science in a practical point view in our school age. 

Let us work hard to make sure that every child relishes science and enjoys it by doing but not just by "mugging". Please keep checking the blog for more details on summer camp. Do join us for building a humanistic society with scientific thinking !!

Sugathi gets information from SSA through RTI !!

Mobile schools , which were started with an aim of taking education to the doorstep of kids from slum areas were scrapped by Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan(SSA) in June 2011 citing reasons that Right To Education Act(RTE) does not have provision for mobile schools. These mobile schools used to be operated from Bangalore Mahanagara Transport Corporation(BMTC) buses by SSA covering eight routes in the slum areas of Bangalore viz., HSR Layout,Kottanuru Dinne, Raja Rajeshwari Nagara, Vinayaka Nagara ,Dodda Banasavadi, Yalahanka and Peenya. Mobile school project was successful in teaching urban slum kids who are out of school, who were working and who dropped out of schools. News report published by TOI paper in January 2012 to bring out this issue caught attention of Sugathi members.

This report prompted Sugathi to file an Right To Information application at the SSA, Karnataka Office to provide the data about the number of buses operated, their routes and details of children benefited from mobile school programme. We received information from the office of Asst. Director of public instruction for our RTI application.

Now, with the help of this information Sugathi is planning to start an activity of finding out the details of children

• Who did not transfer from mobile school to main stream schools..

• Who dropped out of main stream schools after they were moved from mobile schools.

Once we get a area wise picture of the situation, we should get in touch with local authorities and SSA officials to counsel parents of school dropout children to send them back to school. Bringing those children back to school may not be as fast as it looks on paper. We may have to do several rounds of discussions with the parents. But now a strong RTE act has become a tool for NGOs like Sugathi to tackle the issue of school drop outs.

On weekends we need to spend some time in the above mentioned slums, visiting schools, talking to children and counseling their parents. We request you to volunteer to spare your time for these activities. Kindly pass this information to people in your circles.

Supreme Court says, Education is a fundamental right of every child . Still nearly 30% of Indian children are out of schools in spite of acts like RTE . The time is high for us to work towards a society where every child receives basic education.

Please contact Pardhasaradhi @ 9886412174 or Srinath @ 9886777878 for more details.