Author: Poovizhi

-Poovizhi and Ranjith

Savarirayalu nayakar govt girls high school is applying for a national award in ICT and asked our support on Scratch and Geogebra. Children from 8th and 9th grade were interested to learn. On the first day we did a scratch course. We gave them a task to ask multiple questions and if the answer is correct it’ll move on to the next question else it’ll ask the same question until it is correct. Children were able to use controls and were able to find the logic. The next two days we did a course on Geogebra. Children first explored all the tools available in Geogebra and then drew an equilateral triangle. Some of the children drew it using regular polygon. Then we asked them to draw equilateral triangle by finding the intersection point. They used two circles and found the intersection point and were able to draw the triangle. Then we asked them to draw different triangles and find the sum of the angles of all the triangle. They found that the sum of all three angles of a triangle is 180 degree for all triangle.

On second day, we asked them to draw circle and to find out ratio of circumference and diameter of different circle.They found that the ratio of circumference and diameter is 3.14 (Pi value) for all circle. Then, we asked them to draw chord line on circles and make a triangle by choosing a point on circles with chord as a base of triangle and measure the angles of triangles. Then we asked them to find out the pattern in triangles in different circle. They found that the angle for all triangle at third vertex point on one section of circle is same and different from angle on other section of circle which are separated by chord line on circle and also the sum of angles of both section of circle is always 180 degree for all circle with different chord length.

-Poovizhi

Auroville celebrated Sangamam where all the workers and their families from the bioregion  came together and enjoyed the events. It was a whole day of sports, arts and crafts, cultural programs and many more events. We were allocated a stall for STEM land. Three children from Isai ambalam and 4 children from Udavi came and they setup the stall.

We asked people to display their name or their first letter using  the seven segment displays. Children also were playing games like abalone, Pylos, Dobble and gave some challenging activities to the people.Children asked them to solve the rubiks cube and cast puzzles. Children and the adults were happy to these activities. They were able to display their names using the seven segment displays. Some of them were also able to solve the cast puzzles and were proud of solving them.

We also gave a talk about STEM land under unending education. Bala talked about STEM land in Isai Ambalam and the EBD’s we do there. He also connected with his personal life and the education system that he had before and said that he’s happy to see children having an alternative educations. He also added that we can support more children in Isai ambalam school and people who are interested to join their kids can visit Isai ambalam. I talked about STEM land in Udavi and how children take responsibility of their learning. We also said that we offer free courses related to engineering and people who are interested in learning are always welcome to STEM land.

Nilavazhagan who has completed B.Tech visited our stall in Sangamam and was interested in learning more on what we do. Yesterday he came to STEM land and visited. He wanted to continue and started to come from today onwards and was learning things with children.

We presented our paper about STEM land in Udavi and Isai ambalam in The Bridge a collaborative research in Auroville. Our paper was under unending education on 25th Feb 2018. We started the presentation with the core values of STEM land and about the activities and interventions in STEM land. And continued with the plans and tracking method that we follow in STEM land. Then we shared about the Leadership in action program that we do with children and few examples of how it had benefited them to be responsible.

Then we shared about the learning environment in STEM land where there is no hierarchy and learning becomes a social activity and spreads without one to one inputs from facilitators. We also pointed out how STEM is moving towards STEAM and the outcome of children after coming to STEM land. Then we shared about STEM land in Isaiambalam.

We explained about the real life challenges that children take up and how they solve it through EBD. People enjoyed the session and happy to see children work. We showed them few pictures of children working on their EBD and the designs they have build like, Pond, honey bee, Bamboo torch, garden and kitchen waste water management. People enjoyed the presentation and were interested to know more about STEM land.

Poovizhi, Pratap

We met Parul when we presented our paper (“Fostering responsibility in learning in rural schools) in TISS Mumbai. She is a management trainee in BPCL. She wanted to learn more about STEM land so she visited STEM land last Sunday. She came with her parents.

She saw all the Montessori materials we used and asked how they were used and for what purpose. Then she was keen in understanding how children learn multiplication tables using Vaughn cube. We explained her the pronunciation and the corresponding numbers. She tried finding it herself and was happy that she understood it. She also shared it with her parents. She learned about the 3D printer and designed a 3D object in Blender. We showed her some projects made by children in scratch and Geogebra.

Her parents were trying to solve some cast puzzles. We all played dimension games and were explaining about how STEM land works and what we do there. Parul enjoyed STEM land and wanted to support us on our research work.

During the activity class in Udavi school children were working on different applications like Goanimate, MIT Appinventor, Stykz and scratch. Muralidharan anad Nirmal was working on Goanimate. Murali made a video called help others. He made an animation of a man sailing on the boat searching for treasure but then on his way he finds a man in an island asking for help then he goes and rescues him from there. Aravindh built a timer app using MIT Appinventor. Jeeva worked on scratch and programmed a game. Yuvan was working on Stykz and learnt to insert figures in it. It was interesting to see them working on their own on different activities. They were so curious to learn new things and enjoyed learning. Nirmal learnt Go animate and was animating a video to represent a geometrical concept during his math class.

Sooriya and Aruldeva from 9th std in Udavi wanted to learn about 3D printing. They both sat together and got an idea of printing the Olympic flag symbol with five interlaced rings. They tried to design it in Blender. Some times they had doubt and they asked to an 8^th grade child and learnt how to design things in Blender.

It was nice to see 8^th grade and 9^th grade children working together and learn from each other. Then they some how changed the Olympic symbol into a fidget spinner and printed it using Cura. But they had finally printed something as they wanted and learnt to use the 3D printer. They were then playing with it. This dint stop with the fidget spinner. They wanted to continue printing things and now Aruldeva is working on the 3D printer to print a top.

After Pongal (Harvesting festival) holidays children were back to school wearing their Pongal dress. They came to STEM Land for their math class . During the circle time we announced that we have got new games to STEM Land. Children were  eager to play the new games. They went to the iSMART class room and played the new games. We bought three games in which they played two of them since the other one arrived the day after. One of the game was squashed and the other one was Brix. Children split into two groups and took turns to play both the games. One group played Brix in which they had to build a wall where they had 22 blocks. They started the game by choosing their symbol and color.Then they played the game till they get four X’s in a row while the other child tried to get four O’s in a row and the same with the colors.

The other group played Squashed. Where children rolled a die during their turns and move that many spaces and were so enthusiastic to flip the cube so that the other players coins get Squashed. They did the same till the last coin was alive who is the winner. They enjoyed played it and also shared the rules to their friends who were playing the other game. It was fun to look at them playing and while some of their friends were trying to help each other saying move your coin this way, these many steps and squash the other person’s coin! They had a good time.