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Photo: M.Periasamy

HELLO? Kids at the workshop

It’s simple. Make a small hole on one of the cups, break the ice cream stick into two, pass a thread through the hole and tie it to one of the stick pieces. Connect the other end of thread through the hole on the other cup and tie it to the other piece. Now, check 123 and start communicating.

“It is a simple experiment to teach them that sound is nothing but vibration,” says this science teacher at Isha Yoga Home School at Poondi, near Coimbatore.

A handful of students from the neighbouring Thanikandi tribal village assembled on the school premises last weekend to get a taste of a number of such hands-on activities at a three-day workshop.

“Instead of reading about science concepts from textbooks, they do practical experiments and understand them,” he adds. And learning becomes a fun-filled activity. Low-cost models are developed using waste paper, plastic cups, balloons, chappals and pencils to understand the concepts of magnetic trains, cola mirror (to learn different colours by using the combinations of yellow, blue and pink), Sudarshana chakra to understand the balance of centripetal and centrifugal forces, working of an electric motor, Newton’s law, the working of submarines (using syringe caps and water bottles).

The objective is to make science tangible. “We are recycling plastic and using it as an educational tool,” Dipankar adds.

“First we learnt to make a whistle, then to draw, and make toys,” says V. Murugan, a Class IV student speaking over his model telephone. M. Girija, a Class VII student, is fascinated by the working of a balloon-powered car.

Next is the demo on working of a microphone.

All you need is a plastic straw and a chart paper. Cut the edges of the straw to form a triangle. Make a cone with the chart paper, make an incision at the pointed end and insert the straw there. What happens when you speak through this megaphone? “It amplifies the sound instead of spreading it. Something like a shock wave. Simple,” Dipankar explains.

He says every child has an innate tendency to work with hands. Give them any expensive toy, and the first thing they want to know is what lies inside. In such activities, the child constructs the model step-by-step and understands it better.

“When they involve their hands, there is better correlation and when there is more joy, learning becomes faster, and it boosts their self-confidence,” he adds.

K. JESHI

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