How would you like your child to be taught? Do you want your child to learn from experience? Or memorize from books? Being in a country like USA, your children are exposed to practical learning at a very young age. Janyaa is a STEM based 501c (3) non-profit organization that is striving to provide similar experience to children in India using very simple experiments for Science and Math.
Einstein once said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well”. Janyaa believes in this principle strongly and hence they design all their experiments to be explained easily. What is center of gravity? What is Archimedes principle? How is sound transmitted? What is LCM and HCF? What is cumulative frequency? All these concepts are explained with simple material so that children can replicate them at home.
Center of gravity is explained with a fork or a ruler balancing on your finger, few nails balancing on another nail. Sound transmission is taught with two small bottles tied together with a thread. Children can replicate this at home with two match boxes. LCM is explained with number board and buttons.
Janyaa’s experiments are provided to schools in three boxes where all the experiments use very simple material that is easily available anywhere. This enables the child to practice with them without any fear of breaking them. And all this for less than $1 per child per year.
Students say they are able to write in the exams in their own words. This in itself is a huge achievement for the organization. Parents say watching their children’s increased interest in studies, they are happy to send their children to school.
Janyaa – meaning ‘life’ in Sanskrit – is dedicated to enrich lives of students to build a better life for themselves and for their communities. Over a span of seven years they have reached 655 schools benefiting over 280,000 students in 14 states of India – Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Odisha, Delhi, Maharashtra, Haryana, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Punjab and Jammu & Kashmir.
Janyaa is organizing ‘An evening with Science and Magic’ – a fundraising Gala on Saturday March 5th at ICC Milpitas. To support the organization in achieving their goal you can visit www.janyaa.org or emailinfo@janyaa.org.
Lakshmi Yarramaneni