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The Vision of ASF is to significantly contribute to the transformation of facilitating every child to

• learn science concepts
• develop scientific thinking through experience and exploration
• learn in a joyous and stress free environment
• bridge the gap between learning science in classroom and experiencing science in daily life

In order to realise the vision, ASF has initiated a project with government schools working with primary class teachers and has founded Anubhava Science Resource Centre at Bellandur.

• MOU signed with Department of Public Instruction, Government of Karnataka to implement this program in 196 government schools
• Work in progress in 5 government schools
• Anubhava Teacher Facilitation Program being implemented in the above schools
• Anubhava Science Resource Centre has been operational for the last 1.5 years working with children directly
• More than 400 children have directly benefited from Anubhava programs

The aims of ASF are to

• stimulate the child's mind to EXPLORE
• enhance the SCIENTIFIC TEMPER
• SENSITISE the child towards scientific applications
• enhance the child’s power of EXPRESSION
• develop LOVE for SCIENCE in a joyful and stress free environment

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In order to achieve the vision and aims of ASF, Anubhava Science Learning Model(ASLM) has been designed. The ASLM model adopts a learner-centric methodology that assists a child to get exposed to fundamental principles following a concept-based design, experience, enquiry, and expression based implementation techniques.

"Air is everywhere" is a statement found in many text books including third standard text book prescribed by Karnataka State syllabus. Scientist must have spent the whole of his lifetime to discover this seemingly straight forward one-liner. Such an important concept, if delivered to a child as a fact, without even an iota of explanation, it makes no impression on a child. It is important to conduct a discussion towards why we should accept this statement or how we can illustrate this concept with simple experiments or what misconceptions can a child have about the words "Air" or "Everywhere".

We believe that the science learning should be concept-based and should nourish the child's natural curiosity, and provide an opportunity to discover the fundamental concepts.

Anubhava Science Learning Model addresses these issues by adopting a learner-centric methodology that assists a child to get exposed to fundamental principles following a concept-based design and experience, enquiry, and expression based implementation techniques. By learner-centric, we mean that the child is given the maximum opportunity to arrive at concepts by his/her own reasoning, with the teacher mostly acting as a facilitator.

Concept based learning is a model in which content and learning activities are designed based on a set of fundamental concepts and processes to be developed in children. The true science learning can happen only if there is a scope to observe, find patterns, analyse, hypothesize, verify, and conclude. These skills help the child not just to learn science but any subject or application in any real life situation.

For e.g. 'Liquids do not have a definite shape' - we need to break this concept down into fundamentals, such as - a) help the child to understand the concept of shape, b) to experience the shape of solid, liquid matter and c) to express after he/she experience.

This learning process gives a child an opportunity to construct the concepts by themselves.

The proposed learning method provides experiences through performing experiments, activities, enquiry and example-based interactions. This model is designed in a way that it focuses on drawing the attention of a child by creating exciting experiences. This helps the child to increase the level of learning in the process of observation, analysis and conclusion.

For e.g. in the 'Air is everywhere' example, the child needs to experience a situation that illustrates the presence of air. The air is trapped into a bubble, in a plastic bottle. The child now starts to experience air, which is otherwise difficult to experience as it is invisible.

The experiences provided are such that a child can relate, assimilate and apply to everyday situations thus enabling him/her to learn science in all his experiences.

As the child starts to experience and the facilitator offers the direction to help him find the answers, there is a natural process of enquiry that begins in the child. For example, if the child is shown the bubble in a bottle of water, he/she may think the bubble is actually a water bubble instead of an air bubble.

There should be an opportunity for the child to express his/her views even if they are misconceptions. If the facilitator offers the right guidance through questions, examples, hints or answers the child reaches a state of enquiry.

In the above example, the facilitator may achieve this by asking a question 'What happens to the bubble if I remove a bit of water from the bottle? Does it become big or small?' and performing this action. In this way, an opportunity is created for the child to self-verify his/her understanding.

Children love to express what they have learnt, through various channels. These can be articulation of perceptions and thoughts either spoken or written. Drawing is used as another technique to help children for better understanding and to help express what is learnt in a critical and precise way.

For e.g. if the child is drawing a bottle half filled with water in which a tube is inserted below the level of water, the illustration of this bottle with the tube and water has to be accurate. The child may draw the bottle with water and may indicate the tube above the level of water or may not indicate the water at all.

In these sessions, children are also encouraged to express what they did, what they observed, what they concluded through worksheets.

While we attempt to broadly classify various approaches of science teaching/learning methods here, all of these learning approaches are very strongly interconnected.

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Ms. Geetha Arvind

Geetha Arvind is an alumnus of IIT Bombay and has a Masters in Mathematics with specialization in Computer Science. After having worked in the IT industry for 7 years, she decided to quit her software profession to be able to contribute in the field of Children’s education.

In this pursuit, she obtained a diploma in Montessori from IMC and gained valuable insight about Montessori, an important alternative method of education.

Geetha has played a key role in organizing an international conference on education hosted by The Art of Living in collaboration with UNESCO and INCCU. This project has helped her to study the global perspective of education related issues in mainstream schools.

Geetha has worked on understanding and developing novel methods in "Science education in mainstream schools" with a focus on issues related to learning that includes classroom environment, learning materials, method and curriculum.

Founded Anubhava Science Centre in 2007. Currently working with 35 children at the centre in the age group 5-12 yrs.

Mr. Harish Amur

Harish Amur has been involved with Anubhava Science Foundation for the last few months, as a volunteer. In addition, he is also assisting Dhwani Educational Resource Centre in various ways. Prior to this he worked for a software services organization for over 11 years. He holds a bachelors degree in engineering from National Institute of Technology (erstwhile REC), Durgapur.

Mr. Arvind Brahmakal

Arvind Brahmakal is a Chartered and Cost Accountant. After qualification, he spent around 10 years in a multinational FMCG Company in varying capacities learning the breadth and depth of business and finance management. Currently, he is employed with IBM as General Manager – F&A Operations.

Arvind has a desire to make a significant contribution in the field of education. This led to the creation of Anubhava Science Foundation in 2008.

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Prof. D. R. Balurgi

Prof. Baluragi is an accomplished writer and teacher in science, a person who dedicated several decades of his career in popularising science among teachers and students. He is now retired and is involved in several science based initiatives.

For his effort towards popularising science he was awarded by the National Council For Science & Technology Communication in 1991. The state government recognized his efforts in teaching and awarded 'Sri Rajiv Gandhi Memorial Award' in 1993.

Prof. Baluragi also headed the Karnataka State Vijnana Parishat, situated in Belgaum, for several years. He has written over 25 books on various topics of Science and was awarded the Kannada Sahitya Academy award for his book 'Sarala Vijnana Prayoga' in 1993.

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