Children taught to take science as a way of life

Children taught to take science as a way of life
New Bombay Gujarati Mitra Mandal and Navi Mumbai Science Foundation have jointly initiated a project for students to promote balance thinking and learning to treat science as a way of life and not as a means of examination.
Revealing the need and idea of the concept leading organising committee member Divya Kotak informed, "For last five years we at Gujarat Bhawan are organising summer camps for children to develop self-confidence and explore talent in extra-curricular activities. These camps are generally of 25 days and receive tremendous response. Around 200 children had participated in our last camp. We have been covering subjects like yoga, karate, adventure camp, sessions imparting moral values, consumer guidance, cultural activities like singing, dancing, etc., and along with it we have also been providing interaction with police, lawyers. We also tried to explain them the types of sexual abuse. It is only this year when we introduced a two-day lecture on science by Dr A M Bhagwat."
"We also had initiated Fun Club for children where we have various fun activities during traditional days like flying kites in Sankranti. It is in the month of August 2009 we totally converted this Fun Club into a Science Club and initiated a new module. The module was designed to explore science beyond the confines of normal text books in the company of scientists," explained Kotak.
Dr Bhagwat added, "The module is designed by adopting methodology of 'Learning through doing' and enhancing academic performance. We also believe that the child must acquire ability to obtain, analyse, organise and express information in a structured way. Only then she/he will be able to build up leadership qualities and master effective communication techniques."
"Till date we have covered the topics related to atom, astronomy, sound, etc. The best part of it is that each child gets a chance to perform experiments which are so simple that he/she comes to know what it is meant for. Fortunately we have received a very supporting and enthusiastic response from the parents," said Kotak.
The two teams who have been continuously working hard to ensure a sustainable growth of scientific outlook and independent thinking includes Divya Kotak, Darshana Linani, Trupti Thakkar, Vidya Angolkar, Pritiben Kapadia, Hemaben Kotak and Khiati Thakkar from Navi Mumbai Gujarati Mitra Mandal and Dr AM Bhagwat, Dr Sangurdekar PR, Dr Katti VR and Dr Sangle VD from Navi Mumbai Science Foundation.