Help Children Access Hands -On Science Education

Hope you are doing well.

From July to Sept 17, multiple labs at Kuppam Campus was visited by students and teachers and delivered 1,08,748 student exposures comprising of 55,602 boy exposures and 53,146 girl exposures.The Campus boasts of multiple Science Labs, a Model-making Workshop, Art and Ecology Labs, a Discovery Centre, IT, Library and Community reading Centre. The Discovery Center has several interactive science exhibits, and is one of the few emerging interactive science museums in disadvantaged India.

Below is a story of Parthsarthi, a YIL whose life is transformed after visiting Agastya Campus.

Parthsarthi B is 17 years old from II Year PU, Govt PU College Kamasamudram Karnataka. He is a calm boy who comes across as a shy person. He is a young instructor leader at Agastya International Foundation. He has 4 members in his family, his father, mother, and 2 brothers including him, he is youngest in the family. His elder brother is doing civil engineering. He has had 17 exposures to Agastya till now. He has been visiting Agastya when he was in 5 th class. His favorite subject is History as it is theoretical and he gets to learn how country works, how our society functions etc. He also likes science, however before Agastya happened to him he completely hated science. He started liking science when he visited the robotics lab and he made a helicopter in the robotics lab. He tried it making individually, he felt motivated by the appreciation he got from the Agastya instructor, and it also made him feel good. He loves to teach others and share new things that he has learned. He feels that it enhances others skills too. He made a model of a Gobar gas plant it was a mini model and he won the Inspire award for the same. He wants to be a teacher as he feels that when you teach you are enhancing your skills as well as the people that you are teaching. He wants to be a teacher and impart the same skills that he would have. He says that I will never discriminate against the slow learners and will teach them with equality and would encourage them at every point. His role model is Mr D K Ravi who is the Kolar district DC as he helps the poor people. So he wants to become like him and help the poor and the people who cannot help themselves. He also said that we should always respect ladies as they do so much for us. He feels that a good human being should not trouble any one. He wants to be a good human and his desire is that all humans should follow the humanity rules. Every one of all the humans should be equal. He has helped small children when the campus had camps for the children organized. He convinced many people to leave bad habits like smoking and drinking. He has convinced many of his family members to leave it as well. Some people who did not send their children to school because of constrained financial condition. He convinced those people that it is necessary to send the children to school to get them out of this mess. He feels that politicians are eating up all the money and only developing themselves instead of developing the country’s infrastructure. He thinks that they should develop the people around in the society and use the money for better opportunities for people.

 He has made a gun with the waste material available with a pipe and power that remains from the fire crackers. This gun makes a big sound which is helpful in scaring monkeys. The monkeys in his area are a menace. He does not like science and experiments though. He has a bank account and saves up money. He helps his family whenever they need money.

Links:

• http://www.agastya.org