One more feather in Bhavishya Yaan’s Cap – STEM started at NMJ

Tenth of January 2018 became an important day in the calendar of NMJ Municipal School.

Let me first turn the clock back.

Sometime in October, 2017, our President Ramesh Narayan came up with the idea of BY working with Indian School of Management & Entrepreneurship (ISME). The Founding Dean and Chairperson Dr. Indu Shahani, ISME wholeheartedly welcomed the idea.

After this, I met with Ms.Sonali Agnihotri, Director, Enterprise & Outreach and Ms.Arwa Baldiwala, Director, Academics & Director, Social Responsibilities & Enactus, both from ISME. I gave them a detailed outline of Bhavishya Yaan (BY).

After some good brainstorming sessions, all of us came up with the idea of STEM – science, technology, engineering and mathematics. I felt that it is important to introduce the BY children to this important concept, especially in today’s rapidly changing world. Schools, colleges and universities all over the world and leading companies too are giving a lot of emphasis to STEM.

STEM is increasingly finding a lot of traction in today’s rapidly changing world what with Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), self driven cars etc., being the topics for the future.

It was then decided by us that ISME students under the supervision of Arwa would work with BY 6th, 7th and 8th standard students in NMJ and introduce them to STEM. These classes were deliberately chosen so that the BY children get an early exposure to this important learning area thereby opening their minds, encouraging them to think out of the box.

Whilst BY has over the last so many years focused on equipping the children in the five Municipal Schools with English, computer skills and life skills, the ISME led STEM initiative is an important additional skill to the children when they step out of their school and face the outside world. RC ISME Meeting with the Rotaract Committee Chair of Rotary Club of Bombay – Rtn. Murad Currawalla Students from ISME would be doing 8 two hourly sessions once a week from the beginning of January till end of February.

On the face of it, STEM as a concept may sound daunting. However, the ISME students worked on ensuring that it would be easy and at the same time an exciting learning opportunity for the NMJ Students.

On the 10th of January, after putting in a lot of preparation, thirteen students of ISME alongwith Arwa came to NMJ Municipal School to begin the once a week interactive sessions.

The first session commenced with introducing technology and engineering through two activities. The instant camaraderie and “connect” between the BY students and ISME students was noteworthy and paved the way for a good, successful beginning, auguring well for the subsequent sessions. This was all the more commendable, given the very different backgrounds they were coming from.

LED & Battery
The BY students were divided into groups, with each group given LED Bulbs and a battery cell. The moment they would connect the two ends of the bulb extensions to the battery cell, the light would come on.

The sole reason of this experiment was to make them aware of the “+” and “-“ aspects of a battery. The ISME students informed the BY children that the inventor of the bulb worked pretty much on the same lines. The children were then asked to correlate this to their remote control battery cells which too have positive and negative signs.

The key takeaway was to make them aware about how batteries function, information about something we use daily and don’t really know how it works.

Paper Tower
The next activity was to make them think out of the box. This is in line with what the world demands out of the ambitious new generation.

Each group was asked to build a Tower using only four things – paper, tapes, hands and creativity. They were encouraged to be the builders of their structures in which they had to display creativity and balance, with something as light as paper which was the steel and cement of their Towers for the day.

Going beyond our expectations, they ended up emulating skyscrapers like Burj Khalifa in Dubai and some used the LED bulbs to light up their Towers!

The key takeaways were to introduce them to team work, creativity and experiencing collaboration amidst individualistic ideas, apart from encouraging them to think out of the box.

It was all in all a great experience for the BY children and the team from ISME. Both of them very much look forward to the forthcoming sessions.

– Rotary Anne Jaya Prasad