Making science an interesting subject

In the city for a session on science through toys, Arvind says that academicians and education experts should come forward and translate interesting science books into Tamil. “There is a dearth of good science books in Tamil. Recently, IIT Madras professor Sreenivas Chakraborty and a couple of students came up with a project called Project Kaleidoscope. They have translated Isaac Asimov’s 30 science books into Tamil. Asimov is one of the greatest science writers the world has ever produced. Though translating his books was a daunting task, the team has given their best with the translation. I want educators and academicians to translate books on science, education and maths into Tamil. Even if you don’t get a publisher it doesn’t matter — you can upload it to the website so that it would be accessible to more people,” he says.

Two years ago, the SCERT (State Council of Educational Research and Training) Tamil Nadu dubbed around 450 videos about interesting subjects into Tamil and uploaded in their website. “That was a progressive move from a state-run education board and I was very happy when they announced this initiative. We need more such programmes. In order to create a sustainable education system, the teachers in the government schools should be motivated to teach through experiments. Children are born experimenters and they learn a great deal without being taught. And this they do by using the humblest materials like leaves, broomsticks, old pens, cycle tubes, etc. I hope to conduct workshops at government and private schools across the country,” the Padma Shree awardee says.