Celebrating Science and Math through Fairs

A Mela for Science and Math?

“Hum mela karne aae hai” (We have come to set up a fair). This is the standard statement we use every time Aavishkaar arrives at a school with a ‘dabba’ (box) or two filled with seemingly random things!

What’s the visual that comes to your mind when you hear the words ‘fair’ or ‘mela’? Fun? Chaos? Games? Our mela has got them all, and more. The concept was started by Aavishkaar to create a festive atmosphere around science and math, bringing joy to everyone.

Aavishkaar’s tagline is ‘Experiments in Math & Science.’ True to its philosophy, the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) mela is an experiment that aims at giving students the experience of fun and interesting ways of learning!

Just like the inflatable jumping castle in a fair, the mela inflates out of a box. People go to each stall, playing and exploring. Being a part of an Aavishkaar mela will give you an essence of what the organization stands for – Curiosity, Creativity and Critical Thinking.

A Typical Mela Day

A team of 2-4 math and science lovers from Aavishkaar (called ‘Aavishkaaraks’) pack two plastic boxes full of math games and hand-made science experiments. They drive to a school anywhere between two and 30 kilometers from Kandbari, our village.

As they arrive at the school, the Aavishkaaraks start walking towards the principal’s chamber while mildly scanning the atmosphere. One of them sparks a conversation with the school’s principal on how the day will look like, “We will need 30 students who will lead the mela and set up stalls.”

At this point the principal becomes very enthusiastic and calls for a teacher who shows us to the 8th and 9th grade classrooms (in case of senior secondary schools) or the 6th grade in case of middle schools.

The natural instinct of any school is to present the ‘best performers’. However, the Aavishkaaraks very consciously ensure that the students are not handpicked.

Once the students are decided, the Aavishkaaraks enter into a dimly lit classroom with puzzled students. “Aap kahan se hai?” (“Where are you from?”) comes a voice, generally from someone sitting in either of the first two rows.

After introductions, the Aavishkaaraks divide the students among themselves and begin to break ice in their groups – while some use humor, others use math games.

One non-negotiable practice of Aavishkaar is that a facilitator must and should experience being a learner before they can hold a space. And hence, for the next hour these 30 students get immersed into the world of questioning and justification. Here they experience being a visitor of the stalls they will be facilitating.

Once the students have cracked the codes of experiments and understood the nuances of the math games, they prepare to set their stalls up, to challenge, question and leave their visitors thinking. It is now time to spread the joy of learning to other students and teachers. The Aavishkaaraks, along with the students, pick an open and spacious location to arrange the mela with benches, posters and banners.

As the make-believe gates open, students come storming. They run towards a stall that attracts them the most and quickly get engrossed. At this point we would like to highlight that the games and experiments Aavishkaar chooses to have at a mela are not just for show.

If you are a mela visitor, you will be 100% invested and there is just no other way! You are absorbed in playing the games and you, the visitor, are doing the experiments.

It is not merely a mentos-volcano experiment that you witness. The magic begins after you have played, as your schoolmate helps you decipher the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’.

For example, the ‘Hole in the Hand’ stall is a hit among the students. As you peep into the stall, you will see two students putting a plastic pipe at the visitor’s eye and asking them to close the other. “Focus on that tree,” says one of the two, pointing to a pine tree about 10 meters away. She then slowly takes your hand and places it next to the pipe and asks you to open the closed eye.

“OH MY GOD! There is a hold in my hand.” exclaims the visitor in shock. With a gentle grin on their faces, the two students ask the visitor what they saw and why they think it is happening. After a solid to and fro of questions and justifications, the visitor, filled with fascination and curiosity, proceeds to the next stall.

Where Stars Fly

While that was a story where students move to the next stall, I would like to introduce you to ‘Udte Sitaare,’ a game that does not see any moving traffic. It was invented by a 10-year-old Aavishkaarak, Shamli Manavi, about eight years ago.

Udte Sitaare is a humble card game around the concept of arithmetic operations. Once you enter this stall, you will forget that there is a mela around you and that it has more things to explore! It is the definition of ‘brain candy’.

If you have the cards open on a table, even a passerby will scan through and end up playing the game in their mind. This is exactly what happens with teachers in the mela.

They come as inspectors and end up becoming opponents of students. You will always see an Aavishkaarak standing at the Udte Sitaare stall, controlling the traffic and nudging people to move on… Oh, So hilariously wholesome!

The Creative Chaos of a Fun-filled STEM Mela

In addition to the whereabouts of each stall, in the STEM mela you will get to see students in all sorts of actions. You will observe them arguing over a science topic, fighting to win a game, engrossed in decoding logics, running between stalls and confused which game to pick first!

Amidst this chaos, you will also see a handful of them silently picking up a book from our mobile library and sitting down to read.

Aavishkaar started the concept of Mela to create a joyful ambience around STEM. We have found it the best way to enter schools and showcase the sense of possibilities to students, teachers, principal and the parent community.

We have seen it spread the work of Aavishkaar by word-of-mouth. We get calls from schools of the area to conduct mela. It also serves as an opportunity to further deepen the engagement with schools.

Curiosity, creativity and critical thinking are at the core of everything Aavishkaar does. True to this, a STEM mela aims to spark all the three in students. It empowers students setting up the stalls to believe that they are capable of exploring, understanding and articulating their understanding of math and science.

Through years of conducting and refining STEM melas, Aavishkaar has seen three major shifts in the school environment. The confidence of students sky-rockets during the course of these three hours.

Teachers begin to believe that their students are capable of holding spaces, especially in math and science. Both students and teachers share that for the very first time they feel that math and science can be fun and creative.

A STEM mela is a truly beautiful sight. It is as fun and democratic as learning can get – to the students, for the students, and by the students!