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Iffat in Isai Ambalam

– Logeshwari

Iffat from Bangladesh came along with her friend to Isai Ambalam School. She completed her Vipassana meditation in Chennai and came to Auroville. She is a writer and involved in arts. Initially she visited Udavi School and then came to Isai Ambalam. Pratap and I were showing and explaining the EBD (Education By Design) that children made. We showed all the EBDs like pond, clay room, tree house, clay oven, India map, vegetable garden and Kitchen waste water treatment. Tree house was explained by the Josh who made this initiative possible in school. Both of them climbed the tree house and enjoyed it.

Students had their examinations at that time. The sixth and seventh graders built a small India map, which was an assessment for them. Two hours was allocated for them to complete it and they completed with five minutes to spare. Then they project was assessed by Ragu. Then later Iffat and her friend interacted with children.

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Babaji Vidhyashram School visit to Isai Ambalam and Udavi

—Pratap, Poovizhi

A group of 44 teacher came to visit Isai Ambalam. Sanjeev, Logeshwari, Saranya and Pratap welcomed them. Sanjeev started introducing about the school and what we deeply care about the children.

Then we each explained Some of the EBD that children made. Saranya took them to the pond and explained the history of the pond.Pond

Then I took them to the clay room and explained about the clay room Clay Room. During this time the children were not their at the school. They went to visit Matrimandir and they came back while I was explaining about the clay room. The moment children came inside the school I felt that they got blessing from the Mother since they visited Matrimandir.

Then children took initiative to explain about their EBD projects. They started with the tree house. They explained in English and it really touched me to see how much the children had progressed in the last year to be confident in front of 40 teachers to talk so confidently . They explained the entire process that took to build the tree house. Tree house

Then they took the teachers  to the clay oven that they built during sleepover Clay oven. They also explained about the India map EBD. Yuvasri and Kaviya from 6th standard explained about the India map India Map.

  

Then they took them to the garden EBD and Sabari and Suresh from 7th standard explained about the garden Garden EBD.

Then Logeshwari explained about the Kitchen waste water EBD. She answered the questions  when the teacher asked to her Kitchen waste water.

Finally all the teacher visited the class room and interacted with the teachers and students.

The UKG students told the months when the teacher were asking to them. The 6th and 7th took them to their class and showed the 5S circle that they do in their class room. They also showed the Mindstorm robot that they built in STEM land.

  

They also showed that they submitted projects for Raman Award and got a participant certification. Then they sang a song for teacher.

  

Ayush from 7th standard presented the project in Scratch.

   

Then Saranya took the teacher to the STEM land and explained what we do in STEM land. She explained the ground rules and the check in check out system that we follow in STEM land.

In Udavi

They came to Udavi after their lunch. We gave a presentation on STEM land in the i-SMART class room. They also attended the stewardship session held by Sanjeev. During the session teachers were able to find what they stand for and also were able to find their fear.

Every teacher was able to process what they really care about and found what they stand for. The teachers were happy and also took the stand and fear chart to put it on their notice board in their school.

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EV3MEG Robot

In Saturday of this week in Isai ambalam school, students are doing different tasks. One group of students was building EV3MEG robot using Build a Robot documentation of MINDSTROMS EV3. The day before (Friday) students had partially completed the Robot structure. Remaining structure of Robot is finished on Saturday and they played with a Robot manual by controlling motors on EV3 brick. Students felt it is annoying and they want It to do task automatically by programming. But there is problem in a laptop which was used to program it. Then they found out LEGO MINDSTROMS commander mobile app with help of volunteer in their school. Using the mobile app (which had GUI mode)  they created GUI command for controlling motors and they connected their Robot with mobile app using Bluetooth and presenting their Robot to all students and teachers in school.

 

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Cutting Bamboo

In Saturday school students had different tasks to do in school. One of them was cutting bamboo tree and making them into pieces for putting banner in many places in Auroville. The banner was for Isai ambalam School. The day before (Friday) students had already cut some of the bamboo tree. We knew the specifications of how many bamboo sticks are needed and what are all the measurements. We need to 12 sticks of 17 feet (5 meters and 10 cm) and 12 sticks of 11 feet (3 meters and 35 cm). Students measured the length using tape and cut them using axe ,saw and knifes. While doing this task the students measurements and conversion of feet to meters.

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India map

Students from 6th and 7th graders made India map using red soil, clay, bricks, pebbles, sand, alluvial soil, black soil. They first wanted to make it on the loft. First they drew a three meters height and three meters width box. Each student were given separate parts of the country to draw. By using graph sheets they drew the map of India.

They made the structure of India using clay. Since there was heavy sun on the loft, the clay got cracks. So students decided to make in on the ground. They did the same thing in the ground. Now they gave shelter to it. But still after a few days it had cracks. Then students came up with a solution that since the layer of the clay is so thin, it had cracks. We had some remaining soil left after the work of oven Education By Design (EBD), so students used that red soil and created another layer above the clay. By using bricks and red soil students built the mountains. In order to differentiate between desert, mountains and rivers they used different materials. For the rivers they mixed the cement with water and built many rivers in India. For desert, they put normal sand. In the eastern parts of the country, they put the alluvial soil. Because the rivers take the alluvial soil and leave it in the delta before joining the sea. Tasks were properly divided among students and it took about two weeks for them to complete the map. The final output of the map was looking good with mountains, rivers and other geographical features. By doing this EBD they learnt Geography of India. Their teacher Ragu supported them.

 

 

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Oven wall EBD with children

– Ranjith

I’m back after two week gap, I notice lot of things happened here in two weeks.

I worked on an EBD (Education by Design) project with children in Isai Ambalam School. They had built a red mud and brick oven, but are concerned that in the rainy season the red sand get eroded by water. They want build a short wall to protect the oven from flow of the water during the rains.

Now they are in the process of cleaning and breaking and making the floor plain to raise a wall from there. It was amazing experience with children and they are eager to finish it soon.

In this week, I learned many more things including

  • A tool called magic used for VLSI layout. I did the layout of an Invertor, NAND gate. Then I learned how to create a hierarchy and import a NAND gate layout and use it to create XOR gate by wiring using different layers of metals to avoid a short circuit.

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Geogebra, EBD & Goanimate

– Saranya

I learned to use Geogebra and have used it to solve a linear equation. This worked for me and it was new to me. It is increasing my interest in mathematics.Now I am eager to solve many equations. Whatever we enter an equation the tool puts the waveform for it. For example, I have taken 3x+2y=0 is a linear equation. From that diagram we can easily identify that is linear equation. This was surprising for me.

I worked on EDB (Education by Design) with students at Isai Ambalam school.The pond which they have built before was cracked by roots of old trees .So because of that students want to reinforce the pond.Now they are in process of adding iron rod and concrete item so that the pond won’t get break again.It was wonderful experience with them.Is very good to see like that students they were full of energy.

I also made a small animated video with Goanimate.com it was great idea. It gave an idea of how I can convey something that feels more interactive. It was fun and awesome because whatever we want convey to the students we can convey by making an animation video. It was my first experience with goanimate.I made a video about multiplication story.
Saranya Multiplication Story by SanjeevRanganathan on GoAnimate

Here are some snapshots in case you cannot see the flash content above.

(I.e) there are 3 children, if I gave 4 bananas to each of them how many bananas did I give in all? The answer also I have shown.The answer is 12(add there number of bananas each have and we will get the answer easily).

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Saturday at Isai Ambalam School

How to make a concrete structure using cement, jelly and sand. Children wanted to make a beam around the pond. To make a beam they wanted to they need a iron rods. We bought the iron rods and the tools to bend the rod into a rectangular structure. First time when I made a TMT Ring it didn’t come in proper way. 5th time I got it correctly. Children were excited and they were watching me seriously. They found the patterns and how to bent the iron rod. One child from 4th standard took effort to draw the actual ring size using a on the surface where I was making the rings. Then Children started to do and they found the pattern how to bend the rings. They told the that they need to bend it 90 degree. All the children used the ring structure that the boy drew which was very useful to bend the ring at the right size.

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Area with Isai Ambalam children

In Isai Ambalam School I was introducing multiplication as area to the 4th graders. Children were having difficulty to do two digit multiplications. So we started using graph sheet to solve multiplication. We started with single digit and then we build on it. I found that using graph sheet children could only see the area and couldn’t build on it. Then children started to use Denies block. Children who were having difficulty started with the Dines block. Children who felt confident started to use scale and measuring tape to measure the object. In STEM land children started to measure the entire object which were in rectangle and square shape. They kept the Dines block on each object that they wanted to measure. They started with a note book and ended measuring the white board. Children also understood that they need to know the length and width to find the area. Children were able to calculate and checked how many 1cm² (centimetre) cube can fit in that area. I also introduced the unit convention to the children I told cm square. One child wrote cm and drew a square on top of cm. Then I explained him that what he wrote was correct and for writing convention we write it as cm².

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Sri.M visit to Isai Ambalam School

A person called Sri.M has been invited to Auroville. He is considered to be a living yogi who has apprenticed with Babaji in the Himalayas. He is a spiritual guide and runs Satsang foundation that runs schools, health care facilities and a Walk of Hope that spans 7500 km over 11 months. Before he came to school teacher made small kolam at the entrance and decoration with flowers. When he came to Aurovill he came to Isai Ambalam School. Many visitors came along with him to the school. He came and sat and spent about 20 minutes interacting with the children. He asked the children to sing a song. Children sang a song about Mother. Then children presented a bamboo torch and a STEM land brochure. Then Sanjeev Ranganathan gave a brief introduction about the school. The visitors started interacting with the children in small groups. Along with him children started to walk for some kilometre and came back to school.