1/5/16
This morning didn’t really work out, as our ecology tour guide didn’t connect with us. Woops. Maybe it is for the better, as it was really cloudy so the views wouldn’t have been all that great. But one thing to note is that many mornings there has been singing played in the distance that I can hear. I think some mornings there are festivals while others it is the normal prayer. But it is impressively loud.
We spent the day with Naresh, who is in charge of many of their projects here and their optics curriculum. He is very interested in building learning tools. We spent the morning learning about how they currently teach optics. We went through the entire handbook of demonstrations and activities that a teacher would do with their students. This was incredibly helpful, because our Brightboxes are expected to not only work for our activities, but also replace the current box that they use for demonstration. In the afternoon we switched roles and showed him our Brightbox and the curriculum we developed. It was an incredibly informative day, both in seeing what they do and getting feedback on what we have brought. Today made me so much more excited about our work and I can’t wait to see it in a classroom tomorrow. He gave us some great suggestions and I’m already starting to brainstorm what our next semester will look like.
After all of the meetings, we prepped materials for tomorrow, ran from mosquitos, took down trip notes and had dinner before calling it a day. Also, Siddhartan arrived this morning, so it has been great to have him here. He brings good advice and energy to the team. Tomorrow, we will be spending the whole afternoon in a community, so I’m very excited for the experience. While this isn’t touristy and is a lot of work, I’m getting quite the cultural experience. All of the food we are eating is incredibly home-made and common in South India and tomorrow we will be going to a government school in a local village. Can’t wait!
This morning didn’t really work out, as our ecology tour guide didn’t connect with us. Woops. Maybe it is for the better, as it was really cloudy so the views wouldn’t have been all that great. But one thing to note is that many mornings there has been singing played in the distance that I can hear. I think some mornings there are festivals while others it is the normal prayer. But it is impressively loud.
We spent the day with Naresh, who is in charge of many of their projects here and their optics curriculum. He is very interested in building learning tools. We spent the morning learning about how they currently teach optics. We went through the entire handbook of demonstrations and activities that a teacher would do with their students. This was incredibly helpful, because our Brightboxes are expected to not only work for our activities, but also replace the current box that they use for demonstration. In the afternoon we switched roles and showed him our Brightbox and the curriculum we developed. It was an incredibly informative day, both in seeing what they do and getting feedback on what we have brought. Today made me so much more excited about our work and I can’t wait to see it in a classroom tomorrow. He gave us some great suggestions and I’m already starting to brainstorm what our next semester will look like.
After all of the meetings, we prepped materials for tomorrow, ran from mosquitos, took down trip notes and had dinner before calling it a day. Also, Siddhartan arrived this morning, so it has been great to have him here. He brings good advice and energy to the team. Tomorrow, we will be spending the whole afternoon in a community, so I’m very excited for the experience. While this isn’t touristy and is a lot of work, I’m getting quite the cultural experience. All of the food we are eating is incredibly home-made and common in South India and tomorrow we will be going to a government school in a local village. Can’t wait!