AWS Think Big Spaces are helping students cultivate interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math (STEAM)
Istekhar Shaikh, a ninth grade student at Al-Hasanat Urdu School in Navi Mumbai, was thrilled when he found out that he was a finalist at Khoj, a national level science and technology competition. He developed an alarm that can alert people in the event of an earthquake or fire, especially when they are sleeping or engrossed in work.
Snehal Mahanwar, an eighth grade student at the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) School Number 42, ranked in the Top 20 at a tech expo organised by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati for her ‘Accident Avoider System', which she developed to stop cars in case of brake failures. The system has an extra fuel tank where fuel from the main fuel tank gets transferred in case of break failure, so that fuel supply stops, the engine loses power, and eventually stops, avoiding any potential accidents.
Both Istekhar and Snehal are among the thousands of students from schools in Navi Mumbai who have benefited from AWS Think Big Spaces, an AWS InCommunities program.
AWS Think Big Spaces are designed to provide students from underserved communities a place beyond the classroom to explore and cultivate an interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math (STEAM) disciplines. These labs encourage a hands-on approach, enabling students to tinker and explore so that they can think big to solve real-world problems.
Educators like Ravindra Mhatre, teacher at NMMC School No. 22, believes that this is important for the holistic development of children as they are encouraged to identify real world problems and solutions. As part of the program, students are also encouraged to participate and showcase their innovations in state and national level competitions.
Encouraging project-based learning in STEAM
Since 2019, AWS Think Big Spaces has empowered young students from municipal schools in Navi Mumbai. A total of 11 AWS Think Big Spaces have been set up, including one mobile Think Big Space, which together cater to 30 NMMC schools in three villages - Mahape, Rabale, and Turbhe. This program will be taken to more schools under NMMC in the coming months.
AWS Think Big Spaces in India helps inspire a spirit of innovation with its unique curriculum, advanced teaching methods, and AWS technologies. Expert Resource Persons (RPs) assigned to the spaces use various teaching methods and teaching learning materials (TLMs) to explain various STEAM-related concepts to children. Students have benefited from learning techniques such as inquiry-based learning (IBL), which requires them to not just identify the problem but also perform research and come up with hypotheses that take them closer to solutions. Similarly, design thinking has taught the students the five critical steps to problem-solving—empathize and identify the problem, define the problem, ideate to find solutions, create prototypes of the solutions, and test these prototypes on the field.
The practical learning experience that students gain from working on projects is enriching, supplementing the knowledge gained from reading books, according to Dattaram Mayekar, a teacher at NMMC School No. 31.
No lockdown on learning
In addition to driving interest in STEAM, AWS Think Big Spaces played a big role in student engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic. When schools were closed, the
program enabled them to quickly pivot to virtual learning by utilising devices that students had access to at home. The municipal corporation supported by providing students with internet access for their home devices, such as mobile phones and basic computers. To ensure each child could participate in learning, AWS donated 400 new tablets to students, and also provided internet access on these tablets so that no child would miss an online session due to lack of digital access.
In addition, AWS offered teachers training on online teaching methods to help them improve their effectiveness in delivering online classes. To further facilitate remote learning, AWS also provided tinkering kits to students so that teachers and students could work together on projects remotely. These initiatives saw the involvement of 70 teachers and school leaders, benefiting over 4,000 students such as Rushikesh Thorat from NMMC School No. 31. During the lockdown, Rushikesh was able to work on a new project on an e-bicycle using the resources provided to him under the program.
Annual competition for young innovators
Based on the success of the AWS Think Big Spaces program, an annual competition called the AWS Think Big Science Carnival has been launched and expanded to 50 schools under NMMC in 2022. The carnival has given students the opportunity to look more closely at the problems around them and design innovative solutions, aligned to the UN Sustainable Development Goals of Quality Education, Climate Action, and Zero Hunger. Over 200 students submitted their project ideas, which were evaluated by a jury of experts, including AWS employees, who mentored the students to build and enhance their project prototypes. The Top 15 prototypes were presented in a grand finale event earlier this year.
