Now a days science / evs (environmental sc) projects are whats eating away my precious time.

🙁 I am very unhappy with the silly system of science project.

Stick 5 birds , stick 5 national items, stick 5 flowers!!!

And when teacher writes the word, STICK, no amount of coaxing and explaining works with kids who take their teachers next to God!

So I had to sit with the kids and explain why they are doing these projects and how it might help them.

1. They will learn 5 names of birds, flowers etc etc.

2. They will learn how to peel off stickers.

3. They will learn what is the best time to tell their parents about these stickers as shops close off after 10:00pm.

4. They will learn how to search pictures in google if the shop has closed for the day.

5. They will learn how to print, cut and paste pictures.

6. They will also learn that the reason they paste and not draw these pictures is because, at this age they cannot draw neatly complex things.

7. They still do not want to accept that if the picture is simple, they can draw and color it, because the teacher has written down “PASTE” the pictures.

In the world of google and all kinds of animation happening, its time, sticking was replaced by searching on the internet, downloading and making an online project.

How wonderful it would be if all kids had a blog, where they were pasting these project works post by post. Isn’t that the future!

I have seen all schools making their students do projects which has no relevance to the age! So obviously who does these projects is a no brainer!

Is there a need to do a project?

Ofcourse, it’s the best way to learn something! But not the way it is happening now a days!

How a projects should be conducted?

I really have no expertise on this except that I am definitely creative enough to make it very very exciting to the kids that they will WANT to do a project.

To make them WANT to do a project which will help them LEARN something, I have to make sure of a few rules:

1. The age group matters. There is no point teaching a the theory of relativity to a 10 yr old!

So first and foremost make sure the project topic is relevant to the age group in terms of ease of understanding the theory or the need to learn it.

2. The degree of difficulty matters too.

We are human beings. We love to simplify things naturally. So why complicate lives of tiny kids with process they will never be able to do on their own.

The idea of doing a project should be that it is done 100% percent by the child with an adult supervision. (and not the other way round :()

If the child cannot do it, either find an easy way or postpone it.

3. Do it yourself first to see the need, ease and learning. Write all the steps that will make it easier for the kids to do it.

I always do projects before they are back from school and am ready with the stuff. Then I ask them to hunt the house and bring things which is mentioned in the list. Sometimes, I keep things from where they can easily locate and there are times when I hide them, for them to search or come up with a second solution. Again, I have done my research.

4. Show them and then leave them to do the projects on their own.

I am always having a hearty laugh, with the result which is mostly what is expected but in a much cuter form 🙂 .

eg The project on birds and nesting.

Since last 4 years a pair of love birds are making nest in our balcony. My kids were suppose to click pictures from the time the birds started to place the twigs and leaves to the end.

Now they have a cute collection of pictures of the nest formation. BTW love birds make very shabby nest :).

They know the color of the love birds, the size, the season they build the nest. We are hoping the eggs to come by this week :). The additional learning that went into was the food they eat, the time they come back into their nest and how they know where their nest is.

eg The project on does water expand when turned into ice?

Here too they filled two bottles one full and one half with a mark of the level. And were extremely happy to see that water does expand and by how much. And the power of ice to break open the pet bottle when ice expanded.