In yet another effort to encourage girl students to pursue Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), the Centre for Creative Learning (CCL) at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN), in collaboration with Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Government of Uttar Pradesh (UP), has started a specially designed programme called ‘Curiosity’, for 746 Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) schools of Uttar Pradesh. It is reaching around 74,600 girl students across the state.
The programme aims to improve science education by widening the horizon for students as well as teachers, beyond the textbooks and curriculum. Although the programme is built around STEM education, the experiential learning is expected to percolate in the pedagogy of other subjects as well in the long run.
The larger goal is also to develop a replicable implementation model that is built using engaging content, sustained work with teachers, and STEM labs as the pivots.
As a part of the ‘Curiosity’ programme, CCL is also developing 100 modules on teaching middle school science in an experiential manner with help of interesting toys and activities.
These 100 modules are planned to be implemented in three stages: 1) By conducting online workshops with all 746 KGBV schools, 2) By providing a ‘Curiosity Box’ to all these schools, containing all materials to enable teachers to conduct various immersive activities with students, and 3) By conducting offline face-to-face workshops with all these KGBV schools in UP.
These modules, which are specially designed in Hindi for enhanced understanding and learning of students, will be delivered all through the year.
CCL-IITGN has already started conducting online tutorial workshops twice a week, every Tuesday and Friday for one hour each. About 100 girl students of classes 6 to 8 from each of the 746 KGBV schools join the sessions through Zoom and YouTube, taking the total number to about 74,600 students from across the state.
The students are also accompanied by their Science and Math teachers, and sometimes by principals and district coordinators as well.
Sharing his vision about the ‘Curiosity’ programme, Prof Manish Jain, Head of CCL, IITGN, said, “This programme is specially designed keeping in mind the environment that these girl students come from. The context, examples, stories, material, and the use of Hindi language, everything is specially created so that they can relate to it while learning. Such contextual content is largely missing in the content available on the internet. We aim to bring back the “gleam” in the eyes of all the 74,600 girls with whom we are going to connect through about 100 sessions planned from March to December 2022.”
Gaurav Kumar, who is leading this project, added, “The goal of these sessions is not just to cover the science curriculum but nudge them towards seeing science in their daily lives. On Women’s Day, we are doing a special session and sharing the stories of prominent women scientists with the students to inspire them to pursue STEM careers.” The sessions are conducted by Sarita, Adithi and Jay from CCL.
Sharing his feedback, Mr Shetrunjay Sharma, one of the district coordinators said, “The biggest success of this program is that a curiosity towards Science is developing among the girls.”
CCL-IITGN is also running ‘Sparkle Series’ for about 10,000 Vigyan Jyoti girl students in 200 Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas of 34 states and union territories across the country. This effort is also aimed at popularising STEM among young girls. ‘Sparkle Series’ is live-streamed every Saturday from 3 to 4:30 pm on CCL’s YouTube channel.