Innovative exhibits, spectacular results

Sanjana Krishnan

On the 17th of January, students of St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, set up an exhibition called Paradigm. It was a wonderful exercise in learning by doing. The students were encouraged to take up topics from the syllabus that interested them and design innovative experiments to illustrate some concepts embedded in these topics.

Teaching to think

Tejasvi Dantuluri

There is a growing apathy in students towards science. One reason (or misconception) is that it is a tough classroom subject and another is that it is the clever student’s cup of tea. This notion has led to both fear and stress in pupils as they keep encountering the subject at different levels of their education.

Making mechanics less mechanical

Kripa Gowrishankar and Richard Fernandes

Galileo is credited with discovering the laws of the simple pendulum. It is a much told story that he observed the swinging of the lantern in the cathedral of Pisa (whose bell tower is the famous Leaning Tower) during a church service. He is said to have timed it against his pulse, which one presumes he had suspected to be of uniform temporal nature.

Reviews

SDM Book Review Discovered Questions Yash Pal and Rahul Pal Published by NCERT Price Rs. 130/- Prof. Yash Pal, charismatic scientist and science popularizer, the man behind Countrywide Classroom and Turning Point, writes by way of introduction to the book, Read More …

Interstellar theories

Subha Das Mollick

Albert Einstein had once said, “Common sense is that layer of prejudices laid down in the mind prior to the age of eighteen.” Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar is commonsense defying, but it is intriguing enough for multiple viewing and a closer examination on the basis of known and accepted facts about the Universe.

Of balance, leaps, jumps and turns

Ananda Shankar Jayant

‘Remember your basic physics class, and now find your centre of gravity’, I tell my young dance students. ‘Strengthen your spine and find the inherent balance of your body. To leap and jump in the air and perform aerial movements, remember to accept gravity and then take off from it, by lightening your body.

In the realm of Hollywood

PK Thiruvikraman

Teachers usually despair that their students are more interested in watching a movie than sitting in a classroom; they find a novel more exciting than a textbook. As teachers, we feel that we are fighting a losing battle to grab the attention of the student in the face of competition from various sources of entertainment which have mushroomed in this digital age.

The theory of everything

Sayantan Mukherjee

The Theory of Everything is the exceptional story of the renowned astrophysicist and a living legend, Stephen Hawking who falls in love with fellow Cambridge student, Jane Wilde. The film is based on the non-fiction book Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen written by Jane Wilde.

It’s time to tinker and learn

Amit Deshwal

I had read somewhere that our ability to learn is as natural as our ability to breathe. We all love learning provided we are free to choose what we wish to learn, provided we are allowed to spend time on learning things that engage our curiosity.

Video games in a teacher’s toolbox

S Satish Kumar

We, as teachers are aware and have experienced that learning becomes simple and fruitful as we move from a lecture method to audio-visual stimuli to hands-on activity. In physics too, teachers explain the concepts and try to make the classes more interesting through demonstrations, activities and lab experiments.