ASET Colloquium

Reaching the Unreached: Science Classrooms in the tribal regions of Maharashtra - Status and the way forward

by Dr. Asmita Redij (HBCSE, TIFR, Mumbai)

Friday, June 9, 2023 from to (Asia/Kolkata)
at Hybrid ( https://zoom.us/j/91427966752 )
AG-66, TIFR, Mumbai
Description
In India, a significant fraction of students from tribal marginalised regions still struggle to reach school, but the struggle doesn’t end on reaching there. The schools further continue to alienate them, as the classroom discourse does not acknowledge the rich resources around them and the cultural capital they bring along. Trapped between the two worlds, students are left on their own. Can this gap be bridged by making science classrooms more responsive and relevant to life? This demanded walking through the unknown streets, making friends with their culture, and seeing science through their lens. 

In this talk, I will present this journey of learning and unlearning until now and the ideas that emerged from it. I will also talk about how a centre like HBCSE-TIFR with a rich legacy of work in this domain can help bring these ideas into reality. 

About the speaker

The speaker is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education. The main focus of her study is the education of students from marginalised tribal regions. Challenges they face while studying subjects like Science and Mathematics and its addressal. She is also involved in Astronomy Education Research and was a member of IAU OAE-Centre India between Feb 2022 to March 2023. She has done Ph.D. in Neutrino Physics from the University of Bern and before that worked on the India-based Neutrino Observatory project as Scientific Officer.
Material:
Organised by Dr. Satyanarayana Bheesette