Creative Science Fair 2020 an Initiative by Caring with Color inspires Creativity in the Classroom

Highlights

* Caring with Colour - A Manasi Kirloskar Initiative, an education-based non-profit organization, collaborated with The Department of Education and Bidadi Industries Association, to conduct the science fair in Ramanagara block on 28th February 2020
* More than 1100 teachers and students from 54 schools participated in the event showcasing how science can enhance creativity and innovation in students
* Ramanagara, February 28th 2020: On the occasion of National Science Day, Caring with Colour - A Manasi Kirloskar Initiative, collaborated with The Department of Education and Bidadi Industries Association, to conduct Creative Science fair at the Govt. High School Bidadi, of Ramanagara district on 28th February 2020. As a part of the Creative Science fair, a competition was conducted both for teachers and students from more than 50 Government schools in Ramanagara.

The occasion was graced by Mr. Maruthi, Director of Department of State Education Research and Training (DSERT), Mr. Ikram, ZP CEO of Ramanagara and Rajendra Hegde, President of Bidadi Industrial Association (BIA).

The event showcased how teachers in these schools are using innovative teaching practices to make their classrooms interesting. Over 1100 teachers and students from 54 schools spread across 4 clusters participated in the event. Enthusiastic children showcased how they are using the knowledge gained in their science classrooms in their day-to-day lives. This event was designed to develop scientific temper and promote science as a skill among students and promoting experiential methods of teaching science among teachers.

About Caring With Colour- A Manasi Kirloskar Initiative

Caring with Colour- A Manasi Kirloskar Initiative, now in its fourth year, was established to act as a catalyst in improving the learning outcomes in government schools through the adoption of experiential learning methodologies. The organization shares the aspirations of the foundational documents of the Indian Education system like the National Curriculum Framework 2005 and The National Education Policy 2019, which propound that purpose and meaning of education will be realized only when schools build the skills and character required to have a vibrant, peaceful and just society.

“We require a work-force that can be creative, that can solve real-world problems innovatively and sustainably. This can only be achieved when schools focus on imparting 21st century skills inside the classroom delivered through an experiential learning process”, said Manasi Kirloskar, the Managing Director at Kirloskar Systems Limited and CEO of Caring with Colour. That solution created by Caring with Colour enables teachers to teach their regular state syllabus curriculum through the medium of experiential learning. This would mean that the learners of today would be imparted the skills required for future work-force.

Describing the solution design, Mr. Rajeev Annaluru Chief Operation Officer at Caring with Colour, said “We have a comprehensive three-part solution that will help teachers turn their classrooms into fun and engaging experiential learning spaces. Our content helps teachers experientially teach their regular state curriculum. We created rural-India ready technology tools that will help deliver rich digital content in an offline mode in schools. We back this up by hand-holding teachers in the field and facilitate the adoption of experiential teaching methodologies in their classrooms”. Caring with Colour has showcased it is content and technology tools during the science fair.

About Caring With Colour- A Manasi Kirloskar Initiative

Caring with Colour- A Manasi Kirloskar Initiative, now in its fourth year, was established to act as a catalyst in improving the learning outcomes in government schools through the adoption of experiential learning methodologies. The organization shares the aspirations of the foundational documents of the Indian Education system like the National Curriculum Framework 2005 and The National Education Policy 2019, which propound that purpose and meaning of education will be realized only when schools build the skills and character required to have a vibrant, peaceful and just society.

Caring with Colour has created teacher supporting content in Math, Science, and English from grades 4-7 that can be used in teaching each lesson in the state syllabus textbook in an experiential way. Lesson Plans are created by Caring with Colour are in-tune with the idea of helping the learners in the classroom construct their understanding of the world around them using their prior knowledge and contextual experiences. This will help move the classroom from the traditional rote-learning methods into a student-centric approach. A learner of Science, through a Science lesson plan from CWC, won’t just be studying Physics, biology or chemistry but would be understanding and practicing how to hypothesize, look for proofs, revise and experiment.

Another key element of the content created by the organization is the integration of Art and Social and Emotional Learning into everyday teaching practices. CWC's lesson plans integrate Performing Arts, Visual Arts and Fine Arts alike, within the curricular transactions in Math, Science and English subjects. Here, learners are given special opportunities to get exposed to visually rich and colorful learning materials, use the sense of rhythm to learn poetic verses, etc. A learner of English, in an English lesson plan from CWC, can be seen practicing and polishing her/his Inter-personal Intelligence when interacting with people around, Intra-personal skills when reflecting and hypothesizing, Linguistic and Rhythmic Intelligence when reciting a verse among others.

Caring with Colour is also working on creating a technology platform that can help bring the rich experiential learning content that is in digital format to be available in the classrooms on demand. The technology platform called Teachopia which is currently under the prototyping and testing stage is being designed to be rural-India ready and scalable. The platform creates a local intranet Wi-Fi system inside the school serving only educational content that is properly mapped to the curriculum.