Volunteering
jnana prabodhini - Science Cohort
I have been a volunteer in Jnana Prabodhini's Science Group. We work to develop scientific attitude in people and students. There are 2 principal points of focus. One being conducting a 4 day residential workshop of '8th', '9th' and '10th' standard students which exposes students to the scientific process and the skills required like observation and questioning.
The second point of focus is of a Science exhibition. Every year in the month of September, we organize a science exhibition which is open to everyone. Every year around ten thousand people attend the exhibition. In the exhibition, we along with the students study, build and demonstrate experiments relating to the specific theme of the exhibition. The themes of the last 3 years were, electromagnetism, organic chemistry and measurements.
I have been a part of the content creation team for the workshop, co-conducting 3 workshops with around 150 participants, organizing the exhibition and demonstrating 2 experiments to people.
drought relief
Over the years, there has been a lot of disparity in the rainfall received in West India. There are many places in West India which are facing water shortage. For the same, we have come together as a part of Jnana Prabodhini and have went and helped the drought affected regions by digging wells for them. These wells have helped them store enough water throughout the year. The whole initiative has been a great boon for the farmers and the residents in the region.
Badminton teaching
Badminton training sessions were devised, conducted and monitored by me as a part of being the coach and co-founder of 'Just Badminton Academy'. Currently, it is run by another coach in Pune, India. The following were duties and responsibilities:
● Teaching professional level tactical and technical badminton to all the learning enthusiasts.
● Coaching a range of students from a toddler of age 3 years 4 months, to a gentleman who is 54 years old.
● Organizing talks by professional Badminton players, physiotherapists and mental coaches.
● Breakdown of world class level badminton matches for better understanding of crucial aspects for the students is conducted on a monthly basis.
● Explain the logic and analytical thinking behind each stroke, variation and method.
● Demonstrate techniques – From novice level to advanced level.
● Organizing and executing multiple tournaments.
● Conducting discussions on game strategies, enhancing ‘THE DAY’ performance and diet plans.
During this period, 76 students trained in the academy. Nihar urged students to participate in tournaments for exposing themselves to the competitive world. Many of the students of the academy have received multiple accolades to their name at various district and state level matches.
Personalized tutoring
I taught 2 students the subject of science for their board exams (which is considered to be one of the most important exams in India). Everything was free of cost and as a way of giving back to the society. And I am equally grateful to the students because I perhaps learned more from them compared to what they learned from me.
I had the opportunity of teaching an eight grade student (I will call him Joe) the scientific research process for 1 month. This was done using a ‘blooming paper flower’ experiment. The goal at the end of the month was to make Joe independent in framing a hypothesis, figuring out the dependent and independent variables, designing experiments to test the hypotheses, collecting the data and analyzing it using MS Excel. It was crucial to make Joe understand that being wrong is okay but it is important to reason why it was wrong. Initially, I used to guide Joe a lot. From the second week, I let him work semi-independently from me and set goals for him each day. We met on alternate days where he used to update me and I used to ask him to justify his decisions, discuss what is blocking him and ask him leading questions if he was doing something wrong so he would realize the mistake. At the end of the month, I can confidently say that Joe could do all of the goals that we had set out to accomplish and could think of ways to perform experiments in his school coursework as well. It was inspiring to see Joe enjoying the process, start thinking about interconnected hypotheses and increase the level of questions he was asking. Joe is now pursuing higher studies in Science and performs experiments using simple household apparatus during his spare time