STEMland was offered a new space in Udavi. All of us were busyin setting up Stemland for a couple of weeks.Especially, Saranya who took the lead for setting up the place . Now we have a bigger space and have a separate room for electronics.
A lot of thought was put into how the space should be organized and some construction and repair was needed. This was handled by professionals and organizing the space was up to us. Saranya made a 3D model of the space and were materials should come. Everything was planned before the move, we needed no after thoughts.
2D view of STEMland3D view of STEMland
It was exciting for all of us including the children as they were going to use the space. Children were busy making projects to present for the inauguration. They were making projects in scratch, electronics, geogebra, mindstorms, etc.
Participation of the children of Isaiambalam :
Children of Isaiamabalam were asked to participate in the event. They were given separate stalls to demonstrate their projects. Most of their projects were based on science and physics.
Preparation for the event:
Children and STEMland teachers decorated the place. Balloons were tied up and colourful Kolams were drawn by the elder children. A symbol of The Mother that was decorated with flowers added beauty to the event.
Mother symbol decorated with flowersMaking kolam
During the event:
Teachers of Stemland each shared an aspect of stemland which was followed by lighting up of candles (Kuthu vilaku).
Pratap giving opening speechSundar giving his speechAnitha lighting up the candle. Aruljothi (Tamil teacher of Udavi), Shankar (Principal of Aikiyam) and Davaselvy (Principal of Udavi) in the backgroundAnupama adding more lightShalini sharing her experience in STEMlandPavithra sharing her experience in STEMland
Two children from 10th grade Udavi also shared their experiences in STEMland.
Projects demo:
Children had different stalls set up with theirbprojects. Teachers from Auroville and outreach schools, youths, children of Aikiyam school and many more guests were invited to interact with children.
Children were excited to show their projects. A child demonstrated how different frequencies can be heard by us. Games and puzzles were also displayed by the younger children. Naveen had a project on spray painting and children explained the physics behind it.
Aikiyam children trying out cast puzzleExploring..An Aikiyam teacher playing Abacon with 7th grade childrenPrinting using 3D printerSpray painting demoMaking art using spray paintArt of two handsAsia map presented by 7th grade children Isaiamabalam
Model of a plant cellMagic jug: pressure modelMindstormDinosor mindstormVoting questionsElectronic voting machineChildren of Udavi and Aikiyam playing gamesShankar (White shirt) principal of Aikiyam viewing projectsTamil game set up by Isaiambalam childrenHearing different frequenciesChildren enjoying snack (Samosa)
In Isai ambalam school, we are working on an Inspirational project about physical, mental, intellectual, moral, and spiritual development of children and teachers. One part of the project is to learn about inspiring child personality in the Indian scriptures and their value.
In these project, there are six teams of teachers and children. Each group has one inspiring child personality from the Indian scriptures.
Our group has Prakalatan as an inspiring child personality. He principles and values are True education.
True Education
Swami Vivekananda has said that “Education is the manifestation of perfection already in a human being”. He further says that “Education is not the amount of information that we put into your brain and runs riot there, undigested, all your life. We must have life building, man making, character making assimilation of ideas. If you have assimilated five ideas and made them your life and character, you have more education than any man who has got by heart a whole library.”
Rather than memorizing pieces of information Swamiji has said that we should be able to understand and truly apply in our lives ideas that matter. The ideas that matter as he says are life-building one that makes our lives better, man making that make us strong physically and mentally and character building where we have the moral strength and spiritual advancement.
The primary message of real education is that of strength. Swamiji says ‘be strong physically, mentally, cognitively, morally and spiritually’. We will see how education supports these ideas.
Physical Education:
Swamji says that “you will be nearer to Heaven through football than the study of Gita…. You will understand the Upanishads better and the glory of the Atman, when your body stands firm on your feet and you feel yourself as man”. One must know the secret of making the body strong through physical education. For a complete education, it is necessary to develop mind, body and vital.
Physical education supports mental and character development. While playing sports, we naturally learn to concentrate our mindfully on the sports also we learn to coordinate our mind and body, which helps us control and discipline our mind and body. All these aspects concentrating fully, keeping health, senses and your mind disciplined and makes us more self-confident.
It helps us to form good habits such as running, practicing yoga, practicing martial arts, eating and sleeping on time, etc,. These habits will help us to discipline our body and mind which make us powerful and confidence on our ability that “I have enormous power in me, I can do anything and everything”.
Spiritual Education:
Spiritual literacy defines finding a deeper meaning within ourselves, others and the divine. Swamiji says that “Where can we go to find God if we cannot see Him in our own hearts and in every living being.”
To feel the presence of the divine one must do the following:
Sense a secret law of balance in the nature, (i.e all beings in the world is helping each others to support their life on the earth)
Put ego down that is “human is superior to all beings in the world” and agree the human gets all the knowledge from all beings in the world. Example human’s learned martial arts from animals, medicines from plants and animals, electricity form lighting, music and dances from birds and insects, etc.
Sense that human body itself is made up trillion of individual living cell and each individual cell have a wisdom and works together to keep us alive, and accept human cannot wisdom to do that what the cells in our body doing to keep us alive.
Anywhere in the universe we can find same pattern like “Every cells in our body feels God in form our thoughts and action through which they get food to survive and at same time God it is us cannot survive without proper balance of the cells in our body.”
Likewise all beings in the universe is like a cells in God or nature, without God or nature living beings cannot, at same time God or nature cannot without proper balance between all beings in universe.
If we see the divine in all we will be able to meet the goals of moral and cognitive education of loving all. We will then respect, devote, maintain proper balance of ecosystem and treat all beings in the nature with the same standard as we treat ourselves. Therefore, we will get grace of Nature or God in all situation in our life.
Spiritual
Story of Bhakta Prahaladan:
Story of Prahaladan
Prahaladan was educated by the Narada sage while he was in the womb of Prahaladan’s mother. He gained so much wisdom(vishnu’s vedam) at that early age. He wanted to spread them to the world. First he started his Teaching and workshipping “presence of God in all the beings in the world”(same sightedness) to other boys in Gurukulam.
Seeing this, his father became angry with him and ordered him to be punished. In honor of his father, Prahaladan accepted his father’s punishment. But he was saved from every punishment by his devotion to God. Then Prahaladhan became king. At that time, he had a full-time job serving poor and simple people. Because he was in the true state, he has been admired by the people ever since.
We see that Prahaladan sense the God in all beings in the universe. Due to this he respected his father’s even though his father ordered to kill him and also respect and devote to animals, fire, weapons which is used to kill him. Therefore, he get grace of Nature or God and get protected from all situation.
We end with a reminder from Swami Vivekananda ‘work hard to get knowledge, skills and wisdom’.
Whille preparing for the class in Auroville schools about Siphon, the Isaiambalam students were curious how it works and were asking us how we had done it. So, Naveen and I were explaining the students how the siphon works and the different positions, it should be kept for transferring maximum liquid from one cup to another. The students of Auroville schools also enjoyed doing it, they tried out different ways of transferring the water(with single pipe and later with two pipes). They also tried to transfer 1 liter of water equally into three cups and were successful.
The STEM LAND Classes was started in Auroville Schools (TLC and Deepanam) from this week. In the first half of the class I asked the students to make a Spray with the use of straw and a cup of water. Though the students struggled a bit in the beginning they were coming up with different ways of spilling the water. When I gave some clues, they got the idea and started to build their own spray. The students had a confusion on how it works, and so the explanation was given to them about the higher pressure which pushes the water from the cup to the lower pressure of the straw. In the second half of the class, few cast puzzles and games were introduced to the students where they got excited and started playing.
