Breaking the ice

IIT-Madras’ life skills programme aims at making learning fun, allowing first-year undergraduate students to feel at home.

Three students are huddled together, deep in conversation. Next to them, a chart paper, some sketch pens, old newspapers and a bottle of glue are spread out on the floor. Another group of three has already started work on a project. A professor is walking around, holding a bunch of finished chart papers, with pictures ranging from Iron man to sea mammals drawn on them.

This is not a scene from an art class, but from the life skills programme being conducted at IIT-Madras.

Launched for the benefit of first-year undergraduates, the programme intends to break the ice and make the students feel at home in the campus. It is also designed to help them cope with pressure and guide them towards making the right decisions. “My experience has shown me that when students join the course, they have some communication issues. Therefore, we designed this programme to help them bond and, at the same time, teach them some important lessons that will help them throughout their course,” says Prof. MS Srinivasan, dean of students.

He has been spearheading the programme along with Shiva Subramaniam, a guest faculty and Arul Jayachandran, Associate Professor, Department of Cicil Engineering.

Interactive learning

The programme was started as an experiment last year, has gone through some fine-tuning after feedback from the first batch and has emerged as a cross-cultural learning experience. New, interactive methods have been integrated along with greater student engagement. “Is teaching the only way to learn? We found that it was really difficult to engage with students if as many as 50 are present in class. Also, they tend to learn more outside the class, where they can interact freely and be more at ease. So, we came up with a way to make learning fun,” says Shiva Subramaniam. Students are divided into groups of five to facilitate interaction and learning takes place through fun exercises such as making posters, listening to speakers, and specially-designed workbooks. The focus is on three areas: communication, planning and systems thinking.

“The sessions are interesting. They’re different from the usual classroom lectures, which is refreshing. We also get to interact with other batch-mates and make new friends,” says Sharath, a first-year B.Tech chemical engineering student.

Based on self-learning, sharing and peer-to-peer learning, the model is dependent on 60 volunteers who have been drawn from the senior batches to act as facilitators. So far, almost 950 freshers have been trained without the help of teachers.

Keywords: life skills programme, IIT-Madras, undergraduates

Your 3-point programme

Solar water heater, rain barrel and kitchen composter are a must in every house, says S. Vishwanath

The three products address a part of the crisis gripping urban India— energy, water and waste. So, do you have a solar water heater? A rain barrel? A kitchen waste composter? No? What are you waiting for? Yes? Well done then.

A solar water heater works fine for about 300 days in a year in a city like Bangalore. It preheats water for the rest of the 65 cloudy or rainy days. A hot water bath being a dire necessity for any self-respecting Indian, the solar water heater is a boon.

It saves money to boot, with fast increasing electricity prices and pays back for itself in about four years. No wonder then that Bangalore has the largest number of solar water heaters for any city in India. Many solar water heaters are available in the market and the choice is wide.

A rain barrel or even any other form of rainwater harvesting such as a filter and storage in a sump tank or even a recharge well to top up the groundwater aquifer is another must in an era of water shortage, bad water quality and sky rocketing price for water tankers. This works for the 60 days that it rains in the city and depending on the use can supplement water requirements quite a lot. Consider getting and installing a rain barrel, takes half a day and you can get all the year’s drinking and cooking water supply straight from the Indian Ocean. Rain barrels have to be bought and installed and any well-trained plumber can do that. If you want to buy rain filters many are available in the market.

The mountain of waste that a city throws up now exercises the highest political leadership of the land as well as the judiciary. The solution begins at home. A kitchen composter can take the segregated waste which can be bio-degraded and turns it to rich compost which can be used in pots and gardens to grow the organic ‘bhindi’ which you so crave or even the brinjals for that matter.

This simple act of segregation, composting and recycling which would take no more than 5 minutes of your time can save tonnes of monies for the local government, acres of land and water which would otherwise be polluted beyond description and keep our environment clean. Readymade composters are available with bio-additives which hasten the process of composting in the city and outside.

Now that you have the three essential products for basic survival how about a cycle for moving around instead of your car? How about some solar lighting systems with LED bulbs? How about a kitchen bio-gas plant to generate your cooking gas requirement?

A fast expanding list for a responsible citizen which you and the city will be proud of.

zenrainman@gmail.com

Keywords: Solar water heater, rain barrel, kitchen composter

WHO’s Heart Day advice: reduce salt intake

Sets target of 30% reduction by 2025

Cutting down on salt can lower the risk of developing heart disease and stroke, the World Health Organisation said on the eve of World Heart Day, targeting a 30 per cent reduction in salt intake in all supporting nations by 2025.

In a communiqué to all countries, the WHO asked stakeholders to take action against the overuse of salt by implementing its sodium reduction recommendations.

Pointing out that non-communicable diseases such as heart disease and stroke were the leading causes of premature deaths, the WHO wanted the governments to implement the “global action plan to reduce non-communicable diseases” that set nine targets, one being to reduce salt intake by a relative 30 per cent across the globe by 2025.

“If the target to reduce salt by 30 per cent globally by 2025 is achieved, millions of lives can be saved from heart disease, stroke and related conditions,” Oleg Chestnov, WHO Assistant Director-General for Non-communicable Diseases and Mental Health, said in a statement.

The WHO cautioned that consuming too much salt could lead to, or contribute to, hypertension, or high blood pressure, and greatly increase the risk of heart disease and stroke.

“On average, people consume around 10 grams of salt per day. This is around double the WHO-recommended level from all sources, including processed foods, readymade meals and food prepared at home. The WHO recommends that children aged two to 15 consume even less salt than this, adjusted to their energy requirements for growth,” the statement said.

Population health

Dr. Chestnov said reducing the salt intake was one of the most effective ways for countries to improve population health, and urged the food industry to work closely with the WHO and national governments to reduce the level of salt in food products incrementally.

Recommending strategies for individuals and families to reduce salt intake, the WHO suggested reading food labels when buying processed food to check salt levels; asking for products with less salt when buying prepared food; removing salt dispensers and bottled sauces from dining tables; limiting the amount of salt added in cooking to a total maximum amount a fifth of a teaspoon over the course of a day; and limiting frequent consumption of high salt products.

Keywords: World Heart Day, reduced salt intake

Flip side of success

They always want to be at the top and pay heavily for it. What can overachievers do to handle the pressure?

They are the students who stay back after class and bombard their teacher with a million doubts. They spend all their time with their noses stuck in a textbook, preparing relentlessly for exams that are months away. Always ahead of their class, they are proud and vulnerable at the same time, pushing themselves to succeed. The fear of failure is their worst nightmare and they do all they can to avoid it. But what happens when overachievers fail?

From the time children are first admitted to schools, the system teaches them to strive only for the top position. Anything less is unacceptable. Caught between the pressure from school, family and their own expectations, achievers often lead isolated lives. Sriram Naganathan, the southern India coordinator for IGNUS ERG, an initiative that aims at improving the quality of education from pre-school to upper primary levels, talks about keeping ‘the top slot’. “Everyone aims for the top slot, whether it is in academics or in life. It is a question of competing to win a prize. The problem is that once someone gets into that slot, any move side-ways or below is not allowed. It is as if he has to hold on to it for life,” he explains. Quoting a psychiatrist friend in Mumbai, who told his son never to come first in school, Sriram says: “He said it was enough to have the confidence that one can top if necessary. The immediate effect of success is performance anxiety and children don’t have the psychological maturity to handle it.”

For most achievers who have spent some time in the limelight, it becomes difficult to become a part of the pack again. Success becomes not only their permanent goal but also their identity. “The problem begins with anxiety and ends in depression,” says counselling psychologist Vasuki Mathivanan. “If the achiever is able to cope up with a negative situation and look at resolving it, then it is alright. But most of them don’t know how to handle their emotions. So, when they don’t succeed, they take it personally and think they are a failure. These children have high levels of motivation; but when they face failure, they feel very inadequate and vulnerable. This puts them under a lot of pressure.”

In colleges too, achievers often end up bearing the brunt of expectations, says Vidya Padmanabhan, assistant professor at the department of journalism at MOP Vaishnav College for Women. “ During teamwork, they are expected to step up and fill the gaps left by the underperformers. Whether it is to photocopy notes or to perform an administrative task for the class, teachers invariably turn to them,” she says. And on occasions when they slip up, even the most well-intentioned teacher tends to say, “I did not expect this of you.”

Fingers in every pie

She also points out that these students want to be a part of everything — being the president of the drama club, English club and the department club, while taking Spanish and violin lessons, besides, of course, academic work. Naturally, they are unavailable for one or the other activity at some crucial moments, which can create a bad impression. “I have seen instances of high-achieving students being so emotionally fragile that they would end up in tears if they were told they did not answer a particular question properly in an exam. There are, of course, exceptional high-achievers who are able to manage everything perfectly, but, as the saying goes, it's lonely at the top,” she says.

Most of these achievers are willing to give up their social lives in order to stay there. “Overexerting one-self may come at a social cost. For instance, a student may be unable to join her friends for a movie because she is committed to delivering an assignment on deadline. It is a price she may be willing to pay,” says Vidya. Sriram agrees, “The social problems aren’t long-term. But in school, these children lose out on the pleasures of childhood. There is a trade-off between success and happiness, and if you have to succeed, you have to bear with it. ”

Vasuki talks about the role a parent must play in these situations. “There are some clear symptoms when you see that the stress is getting to them. When this happens, the parent must play the role of an encourager and not a disciplinarian. These children know praise but not encouragement. Teach them to have SMART goals — specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound,” she says. To this, Vidya adds, “I would say allowing yourself to fail occasionally gives you a breather from the feverish expectations of others and allows you to focus your attention and talent on what really matters to you. As they say, don't sweat the small stuff.”

Keywords: overachievers, school students, students stress issues, extra-curricular activities

Students developing low-cost, portable Braille printer

In a bid to make technology affordable and accessible to visually-impaired persons, Sandeep Konam, a B. Tech. final-year ECE student at IIIT, Idupulapaya, and a group of IITians are engaged in not only developing a low-cost portable Braille printer that could cost as much as an average Android mobile but also in integrating graphics, tables and images in Indian languages.

Mr. Konam and other B. Tech. students — P. Laksh Kumar, V. Shakti Priyan, Ayushman Talwar, Amera Ali, Aparna Hariharan, Sai Revanth Tadepalli, Syed Junaid Ahmed and Rohith Sirpa — from diverse branches such as design, electronics, mechanical and computer science from IITs and NITs across India, demonstrated a prototype at a workshop titled “ReDx: Engineering the Eye” at Hyderabad recently. A portable working model of a Braille printer was expected to be optimised by December this year, Mr. Konam said.

Mentored by Elliott J. Rouse, Post-Doctoral Associate of Biomechatronics Group, MIT Media Lab, and assisted by premier institutions such as L.V. Prasad Eye Institute Innovation Centre, Cyient (formerly Infosys) and the Tata Centre for Technology and Design, the low-cost Braille printer, a counterpart to ink printers, using solenoids to control the embossing pins, could revolutionise the facility for the visually impaired and persons with a low vision. “Developing a prototype that can be used in open source community and qualitative enough to meet the needs of visually-impaired persons is our goal,” says Mr. Konam. “We have hacked a vinyl cutter and reverse-engineered it for usability as Braille printer.”

Keywords: portable Braille printer, low-cost printer, students innovation

MHRD asks schools to ensure implementation of ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’ 

The Human Resource Development ministry has asked all colleges and educational institutions to ensure implementation of the ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’. In a ministry communiqué sent on Wednesday ahead of the launch, institutes have been asked to make sure that the programme is sustained in a “befitting” manner and the campuses are kept clean.

Laying emphasis on the sustenance of the programme, the communication said, “All concerned may be requested to keep the academic, administrative and residential area in a neat condition.”

The ministry has also asked the University Grants Commission (UGC) to roll out schemes on national initiatives for fostering social responsibility in higher education and set guidelines for the establishment of a centre for fostering social responsibility and community engagement in universities during the 12th Plan period.

The centre would help to leverage on the mobilisation and interest that will be generated in the higher educational institutions during the launch of the ‘Swachh Bharat’ mission, the communiqué added. Teaching spaces should have a positive ambience for students and playgrounds and open spaces should be kept in neat and clean conditions. Besides, drinking water supplies and storage facilities in both academic and residential blocks should be kept clean and inspected on regular basis, the communication said.

HRD Minister Smriti Irani is set to launch specific cleanliness campaign from a school in New Delhi today. All officials up to the rank of Deputy Secretary will take part in cleaning activities in Kendriya and Navodaya Vidyalayas across the national capital as part of the ‘Swachch Bharat’ campaign. Officials in the higher education division will be at the universities as part of the clean-up drive.

The cleanliness drive culminates on October 31, birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. To ensure the exercise is not confined to one day, the HRD ministry will ask educational institutions to include stories of cleanliness in their curriculum. They will also be asked to ensure that at least few questions in examinations are about hygiene and cleanliness.

- See more at: http://digitallearning.eletsonline.com/2014/09/mhrd-asks-schools-to-ensure-implementation-of-swachh-bharat-abhiyan/#sthash.0rzVSJC9.dpuf

A Day in the Life of an ISRO Scientist

Do you know what is it to love your job? The intense dedication and pure passion driving you to make your workplace your home, your life, your everything? The feeling that makes you focus only on one thing ‘to get the job done, perfectly’?

If you are not aware of this feeling, here’s a suggestion: Take a trip to the ISRO office! Be friends with some ISRO scientists and if you fail to do so, lurk outside and observe them. You will observe their heads held high, backs straight and minds filled with purpose.

You will go back to your work place, inspired!

Of course, at this time, the people at ISRO are naturally in love with their jobs. Their maiden spacecraft, Mars orbiter Mission (MOM) entered the Martian atmosphere in its first attempt. Its journey form planet blue to planet red achieved another feat when MOM joined NASA, Russia and Europe in the Martian environment. Not to mention they made India the first Asian country to accomplish it in just $74 million. And all this by resourceful Indian scientists!

Behind every successful space mission is a team of hard working, hardly sleeping and passionate scientists. They strategized, designed, implemented, tested and launched the mission that carved India’s name in red!

Who are the brains behind Mangalyaan? Who are the self effacing scientists who made it happen with such dedication and efforts before and after success of MOM? Who are these dreamers brimming with confidence?

We take a look.

Although it is rocket science, it not science fiction! It is when science gets glorious, allowing ISRO scientists to do what they do best: find solutions to challenges being completely focused.

Have you ever wondered these scientists get the same number of hours as we do. Then what is it that they do different?

Lets take a look at a day in their life!

Click here to enlarge.