Entry 16 Science Experiment 2

Saturday, 10 April 2010

The next step was to show the local teachers how to run a lab and experiments for the kids. The teachers seemed to struggle because they did not understand why a kid could not do the experiment. Thus they barged in and performed the experiment for them. The kids seemed to just watched and were not active enough because they all relied on learning from a text book, not through trying or experimentation. Hence I simply needed to make a textbook specifically for each experiments so the local teachers can follow it. Problem solved. :D.

I had plenty of problems in making this ‘textbook’. First it was the three hours of electricity a day meant computer time was limited. The tycoon kindly lend me his office to work in and with generator electricity I had enough computer time. Then there was the sheer boringness in the job of performing all the experiments to identify everything and transfer that information into a computer. Luckily I spent a lot of my uni life perfecting my MS Paint skills hence I was pretty proud of the clarity of the drawings.  

In the end, I pulled off a 35 pages document with a complete experiment report on each of the 15 experiments with 3D drawings and clear basic instructions for the teachers. Finger crossed it might work. It was done probably. Since I did tell the Tycoon, I am not going to leave anything to chance. I had been in Nepal long enough and understood the second law of thermodynamics to know what needed to be done. 

The correct technique (according to John) in making a wet slide for the microscope. Explained using MS paint.

Below shows a simple magnetic experiment to show field lines. 

This whole task took me a lot of time, but with hindsight, it was all worth it as it gave the project better odds at surviving the test of time. Nepalis had a different way of approaching education. The teachers’ strength was to follow textbooks rigidly. The kids’ strength was the discipline in learning and willing to copy / learning by repetition. Hence the science report which gave the teacher something to follow, and the kids something to copy and eventually they might learn from it through repetition. I wanted to change their learning style, but that was not going to happen in three months.  

I think the teachers raised their game as well because they did command respect in a class room. Physical punishment might have helped in that case but the kids were very willing to learn as well. Therefore it was very rewarding to add something more to this school.