Children solving puzzles

~Saranya

Children from 7th grade his name is Hariharan. During his activity period he picked up a set of puzzles to solve and he practicied it. After two weeks he is able to solve the same set of puzzles in 3 minutes.

And also he is showing everyone to solve the puzzles. I felt instead of giving instruction sheet we could use his video to solve the puzzles.

STEM Land Newsletter-July-Oct 2018

STEM Land Newsletter

Volume-4, July-Oct 2018

About STEM(Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) land

STEMLand is located in two outreach schools of
Auroville (Isai Ambalam and Udavi school). Children come to STEM Land for their Mathematics, EVS and science classes. They learn Mathematics, Electronics,
3D Printing, Programming, Mindstorms (Robotics) and learn to play strategic games that enhance logical thinking. The children take responsibility of their learning and plan their goals. They work individually, in pairs or peer groups and ask for support from facilitators when they need it. This self-directed learning is based on Sri Aurobindo’s first True principle of education (Aurobindo, 1910); “Nothing can be taught”. With younger children we work on real life projects that impact their surroundings. We believe a nurturing environment can support a child’s learning.

Isai Ambalam Shop EBD
In Isai Ambalam school the 7th and 8th graders had difficulty understanding profit and loss. On looking at the prices of stationary in the shops around they found that the price varied and the local shops in the village were charging too much. They also noted that it was not always easy for the younger children to have access to shops for small items they needed like pencils, erasers, scales, notebooks and their parents were not always able to get it for them. They started a small shop of needful things at the school during recess 
Read more.

Medicinal Garden
The children were keen on starting a medicinal garden at the school, when asked, the children said they were inspired by a session they had with a Siddha doctor in August. Children felt that a medicinal garden in the school can be used to cure minor diseases and discomforts and they could create an inventory of their own medicine. They also said that the garden would be useful for them as well as the future generations. Then children planned the location and chose it next to the washbasin so that the water used for washing hands could be reused to grow the plants 
Read more.

Elixir Course
Shanker (a web developer) who had attended the
python Django course offered at the iSMART
classroom, wanted to offer a course of his own on
Elixir. It was designed for 6 sessions in the month of September, across three weeks. Technically, it was a lighter course when compared to the Python Django. We learnt to design and create a simple phoenix project with the terminal, IEX commands, arithmetic operations and string functions. Feedback from the course indicated that the participants found it interesting and joyful.
8th Inspirational Festival (Mind Mingle)
Sanjeev and Arun were invited as guest speakers to the 8 th Inspirational Festival organized by Mind Mingle Helix and Rotary in Salem.The duo gave a brief introduction on STEMland. Then held a small workshop on Stewardship for all the speakers and participants. They received a good response from everybody Read more.
Learning about Indigenous cotton
 In Isai Ambalam school Deoyani Sarkhot and Pratap were working with the 7th and 8th graders on the importance of cultivating Indian cotton.They firsttalked about where cotton has been grown in India. They told the children that in West Bengal the best cotton is grown. Historically, muslin (a lightweight cotton cloth) was made from the best cotton in India Read more.
Scratch Course
A t Udavi school the 7 th graders had stepped in for
their Mathematics class for the first time in STEM
land this year. They saw their seniors work on
projects and some of them took the effort to work
with them, but we felt the need for a more rigorous
course for them. We used the first term holidays to
host a week long course on Scratch along with the
children at Udavi school 
Read more.
Independence Day Celebration This year we celebrated Sri Aurobindo’s Birthday and Independence day differently. Early in morning, 5 th to 8 th grade students went to see the birthday bonfire at
Matrimandir and spent some time in silence and meditation.The children then symbolically took the flame and ran from Town Hall, passed Solar Kitchen,Edyanchavadi, Kottakari, Alankuppam and reached Isai Ambalam School, and lit the firewood which was kept ready
 Read more.

 

Sets Game

A few girls from 10 th grade had built a physical game with a chart representing 3 venn diagrams (governed by 3 randomly selected rules by one team) and a set of 27 games pieces (3 shapes, 3 sizes and 3 colors). The other team players needs to place a piece on one of the areas and ask if it fits there. The goal is to figure out the original rules selected for each circle of the Venn Diagram and demonstrate the understanding of set theory Read more.

Bamboo Charkha

The children in 6th grade were not very sure of how the thread was made from cotton. In their textbook, they found a image of a Charkha. This got them enthusiastic and all the students wanted to make Charkhas.The class was split into two groups. Then they searched for resource materials in their school. Since our campus has many bamboo trees they came up with the idea to make charkhas using bamboos Read more.

Holiday EBD’s

During the 1 st term holiday children (5 th to 8 th grades) had come to school for half day sessions, to learn something new. There were different groups doing different projects. The EBD’s are Kitchen EBD(Read more), Automatic hacksaw(Read more) , Bi-directional People Counter (Read more) and Speed, Distance and Time (Read more)..

Papers accepted at MES 10

Two of our papers have been accepted at the international Mathematics Education and Society conference 10 to be held in Hyderabad end of Jan. Ganesan P., Patchaiyappan P.,et.al. (Jan 2019)
STEM Land (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics Land): Factors and Interventions Influencing Children’s Attitude Towards Mathematics, MES10 [Read..]Iyyanarappan A., Anand B., et.al. (Jan 2019) STEM Land (Science
Technology Engineering Mathematics Land): Deep Learning of Mathematical Concepts Through EBD and by Using Materials, MES10
[Read..]

Support a child

In partnership with Asha for Education we have set up a Support a Child  program for Isai Ambalam School the school we all volunteer in. The support will cover the needs of running high quality programs at the school including teachers salaries; nutrition; activities in sports, music, swimming and STEM land activities. The support for a child is Rs.11,000/year ($168/year). Please sign up to support a child here.

Our Team

We are a team of 12 engineers at STEM land. Our projects range from python programming and more recently to analog VLSI layout.

 

(Left to right) Sanjeev Ranganathan, Murali, Ranjith,
Poovizhi, Sundar, Saranya, Pratap, Arun, Sandhiya,
Naveen, Logeshwari, Abilash)

Meet the team

Support A Child Program II Phase

In partnership with Asha for Education we have set up a Support a Child program forIsai Ambalam School the school we all volunteer in. The support will cover the needs of running high quality programs at the school including teachers salaries; nutrition; activities in sports, music, swimming and STEM land activities.
The support for a child is Rs.11,000/year ($168/year). We have successfully completed Support A child program Phase I covering children from 3rd grade(68
children) onward. We are still looking to support 32 younger children in the second phase. Please sign up to support a child here.

Contributions can be directed towardsAuroville Unity Fund
(with a note for STEM land)
and mail to Dr.Sanjeev Ranganathan,
STEM land Udavi School, Auroville,
Edayanchavadi, Tamil Nadu – 605101
All donations are 100% tax deductible in India.
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Education system should go beyond examination

Our research work

 

 

 

 

REFLECTION ON STEWARDSHIP FOR NEW EMERGING

What I learned about myself:

Session 1:
  • I care about happiness for myself and others.
  • I have background conversation, what I have to say next.
  • Background conversation within me, putting me into fear
  • How my values are connected with my emotions, which help me to grow and overcome my fear.
Session 2:
  • My past is influencing my interpretation about facts.
  • I noticed that I don’t feel Overwhelm, when I took problem as a challenge.
  • I noticed that I am mostly in 0-3 stages in Stage of leadership.
  • I noticed, my root cause of my unhappiness, is condoning the action.

What I will do differently because of what I learned:

Session 1:
  • Don’t care what project I’m choosing, but it should make me and others feel happy.
  • Start conversation from wisdom (value) profile to make commit request.
  • Eventually I will overcome my weakness (gender bias)
  • Practice deeply listen my thoughts (when thinking) and deeply listen others( when having conversation)
Session 2:
  • Use Phrase” I don’t want your gift”.
  • Step into action instead of feeling overwhelm.
  • Use integrity tool to complete my action.
  • Practice discernment.