Discover REALscience Program Project cost $41,450

Executive Summary

In India, learning science means sitting in a classroom with 60+ students, listening to a teacher lecture using a chalkboard for visual aid.   Rote memorization is cultivated at a tender age to survive the annual exams.  Students can recite textbook lessons, however real understanding is practically non-existent.

OUR SOLUTION TO BRING EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING TO THE RURAL CLASSROOM

Discover REALscience is a program that brings hands-on workshops to village schools and classrooms.  From a central base, a team of 5 instructors go to village classrooms and conduct workshops.  Four instructors will conduct one hour science workshops with 20 students.  In this one hour, students complete four 15 min activities

 

 

The 5^th instructor will be a computer literacy instructor, who will use 10 portable laptops and conduct 30 min lessons, serving 80 students per day.

 

 

Project Goals

Our primary objective with this pilot is to

• Spark lifelong interest in education and learning
• To provide a small group learning atmosphere
• To allow free exploration of science and math manipulates
• To teach science concepts by engaging all six senses
• To give students the benefit of instructors trained to create an encouraging and positive learning atmosphere
• To reinforce basic literacy skills – reading and writing
• To reinforce basic math skills
• To give familiarity with technology – computers, tablets, cell phones, keyboards,

Operating Assumptions

• The program reaches six schools visiting each school once a week.
• On weekdays there will be four groups or 80 students who will complete one hour of activities.  On Saturday there will be two groups or 40 students who complete activities.  440 students per week will be participating in the program.
• Module topics and station activities are synchronized with school science curriculum, local science teachers have input into the activities list.
• Over a 9 month school year, a total of 15,840 student hours of science and math activities will be possible or 63,360 fifteen minute activities will be achieved.
• Parallel to the hands-activities there will be a simultaneous computer workshop.  Ten laptops with an instructor will conduct 30 min computer training lessons.  440 students per week will have 30 mins of computer instruction.

Assessment of Impact of Program

The metrics that we will use to determine the impact of this program will be student knowledge retention of key concepts.  At the beginning of each module we will have an assessment that will measure pre-workshop knowledge and post-workshop knowledge, followed up with an end of the year assessment.  We intend to also evaluate student drop-out rate and student scores on key government exams across years.

Budget For A Two Year Pilot

Science Equipment and Storage: $17,000

Salary: Estimated at $17,600  Includes: 1 Science Teacher, 1 Computer Instructor and 3 activities instructors for two years.

Cost of a vehicle: $5,500

Other Transportation Expenses: $1350

Total Estimate for a two-year pilot $41,450