Young Discoverer's Program July 2018

Thinking Classrooms

We live in a world of information explosion. We get to know about various news through the newspapers, TV channels, and in the recent past – through social media like WhatsApp and Facebook. Which of these are true and reliable…? The session started with the screening of a documentary film about how these errors come to be and why they are so hard to correct. Let us look at it with an example. Many misconceptions exist on the food we eat.  What is healthy and what is unhealthy?  Most of us have heard that chocolate is a good stimulant, an anti-depressant, good for heart, helps in reducing the weight etc. How did such a thought come in to existence? 

Filmmaker Diana Noble invented the chocolate diet to test the gullibility of her colleagues. She had seen that nutrition and health market headlines often read ‘a scientific study reveals that a particular diet makes us healthy or sick and therefore we should consume more or less of it.’ However, on closer examination, it was evident that most of these studies are not scientific at all.  She wanted to document this and decided to engage in some pseudo-science. Her study showed that all it takes is a few ordinary people in lab coats who appear as scientists, some sample groups that follow rules, and a repository of data that can be manipulated to produce the intended results to convince public that a study is scientific.  In this case, public were convinced by the idea that chocolate can help in losing weight.

As part of human nature, people want to believe in something. For many, these diet hypes and lifestyle trends have become a substitute religion. New studies often throw up more questions than answers and more room for wrong interpretations - or even deliberately false conclusions. Once wrong information has become embedded in our brains, it is difficult to get rid of it.

Most often, the inputs we receive influences the choice we make and the decisions we take. For example, we get tempted to try out a product just because the advertisement makes certain claims. Example, nutritional drinks makes your child taller and sharper; supplements the child’s diet with nutrients that his normal food does not provide. How true is this claim? Do children actually get the necessary supplements from these nutritional drinks? What then are its ingredients? We need to pay attention to these, to make conscious choices and wise decisions.

The key ingredients in nutritional drinks are carbohydrates, milk solids, thickening, and flavoring agents. Does this then actually contain adequate ingredients to achieve what it claims – provide a complete nutrition to the child? Nevertheless, the claims made in advertisements are so convincing that it leaves less space for questioning its real worth. Additionally, it touches the soft spots in our hearts – the insecurities of not being as smart or bright as the others or the guilt of not being able to provide the best for one’s family.

What we usually look for in a product is the price, the manufacturing and expiry dates and for some discounts. For food products, we go by the flavor/taste/smell etc. If we go two steps deeper into analyzing the product – its ingredients, manufacturer, purpose, longevity etc., it will change our perception towards the product.

We need create spaces in our classroom for many such discussions and sow seeds in the minds of our students so that they start thinking and become conscious. They should not get carried away by the current trends, false hopes and wrong information. They need to be able evaluate any piece of information that they come across and weigh its merits and demerits, desired and undesired impact. As we carve a generation of such critical thinkers, media would also get conscious of what they advertise in products. False claims will not go unnoticed.

Particulate Nature of Matter – Analyzing student responses

The concept of particulate nature of matter is fundamental in chemistry. Complex concepts such as chemical equations etc. are built upon this building block. How do we identify the gaps in students’ understanding of the concepts was the focus of this discussion.

A questionnaire was used where concepts such as diffusion, solubility, insolubility, states of matter etc. are being tested. Students have to draw and explain the process – what happens at the molecular level when sugar dissolves, what happens when water evaporates etc.

Let us take one example and look at this further. Students were asked to draw what happens to the water molecules when it changes it state from ice to water to water vapour.

If the above diagram is a child’s response – what does it tell us about the child’s understanding of the concept?

The child has an understanding about the arrangement of particles in the different states – as the solid particles are arranged close to each other, the liquids are a little distant and the gas molecules are far apart.

The child thinks that the molecules reduce in number and size when the state changes – which is why the liquids and gases have a lesser representation of molecules than the solid.

As teachers, we need to interpret the student responses in a manner that reveals their gaps in understanding. The answers cannot be either right or wrong as every answer reveals a partially correct, partially incorrect or an alternate concept as comprehended by the student. Once we have identified the gaps, our instructions have to be modified to bridge the gaps.

World of Plants

Learning about plants can be very exciting. Against the common perception of plants being stationary and boring, botanists have found out that it is a marvelous world of life. However, to see and experience plant movements and study plants, one needs an eye for details… This is a powerful opportunity to develop observational skills among children. How many of us would have seen a flower bloom or a leaf curl in action…There are time-lapse videos that can be used to see have captured these movements. To get children excited about plants, such videos can be used in class. That will gradually set them in their pursuit of discovering the secrets of the plant kingdom.

What mechanisms do plants have to cope with the changes in the environment? What are the modifications that it would undergo to survive?

Are adaptation and modification the same? – No. A change in the structure of the plant in response to a change in the environment is termed modification. An adaptation is a change that will help an organism thrive in the habitat.  All adaptations are modifications. All modifications need not be adaptations.

Students can be engaged in simple activities to understand the modifications that plants undergo to enable them understand both modifications and adaptations in the plant.  A set of clues can be provided to children and they have to match the given modifications with adaptations of the plant.

It force the participants critically think about the plant adaptations with respect to modifications, environment, genetic factors and correlate it with the theory of evolution.

Another interesting activity that can be done with children is a thinking/writing exercise. If I were a plant living in a particular habitat, how would I try to adapt to that habitat..  This creates an opportunity to relate to a plant and to critically think, observe patterns and draw conclusion by interpreting available data.