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A Quest For Knowledge

By Rohit Nayak

A couple of months back I visited DoorStep School (http://doorstepschool.org/) which is a Pune based NGO that provides free education primarily to children of migrant labor and slum-dwellers. As part of their activities I found they took the children to a science laboratory called Quest.I was excited to hear about it. It turned out that they had their annual science exhibition on Feb 21st.

Mrs Malati Kelkar set up Quest in Pune about six years ago after retiring from a career in teaching. They have two centers, both in Pune. One is in Pashan (opposite Balaji temple) and the other in Aundh (near the petrol pump).

Quest operates as a free service to DoorStep and other NGOs on weekdays. On weekends they provided a fee based service: usually children came either in summer/winter holidays or over the year to perform scientific experiments.

The exhibition was a bustling place with 50 odd experiments. Each had been chosen by a child as the "favorite" among the experiments s/he had done over the previous year. Most of the children I spoke to were able to articulate their experiments and findings quite well. Here are a few of the experiments to give you a flavour:

• Put an egg in vinegar for a few days. When you take it out it becomes spongy!Acetic Acid in the vinegar reacts with the Calcium Carbonate in the shell and CO2 is release. 
• Some filtration techniques were demonstrated to separate out various mixtures including fractional distillation to separate acetone and water. 
• There are two plastic bottles with balloons in them stuck to the mouths such that the balloon is in the bottle. If you blow them both, in one of the bottles the balloon expands while in the other it does not. There is a small hole in the bottle where the balloon expands. 
• A plain paper is dipped in iodine solution. When it is taken out the paper turns light purplish expect for a word that emerges. Starch in the paper reacts with iodine. The word is written with lemon juice: the acid reacts differently resulting in a colorless molecule
• Several environment related displays (including a large exhibit on global warming, others on composting, recycled paper etc).
• Pieces of copper and zinc were stuck into two potatoes, wires were connected appropriately and a current flow was demonstrated using a galvanometer. Copper attracts electrons more than zinc resulting in a flow of electrons, similar to the batteries we use.
• A large powered model that demonstrated eclipses with a rotating earth and moon with a bulb shining on it representing the sun. 
• The principles behind a submarine sinking and rising were shown using an empty bottle with its bottom cut out immersed in water. Sucking in air made it sink and blowing in air made it rise.

Other experiments demonstrated magnetism, air pressure, persistence of vision and several other physical and chemical phenomena.

There were quite a few children from DoorStep School who were matching their more privileged friends both in the quality of the experiments and their understanding and explanations of what they were showing.

Quest has a lot of equipment that most good science labs have including microscopes, measuring equipment, models of the human body, visual charts etc. The emphasis is on each person performing the experiments themselves and then articulating what they have learnt from it. The children are also stimulated by all the other experiments that are going on around them.

Overall Quest is far from breaking even, the venture being funded personally by Mrs Kelkar. While there are many children who pay to learn at Quest the numbers need to be much larger if the activities are to be self-funded. Many parents don't seem to think this is worthwhile since there are no exams to give or competitions to win.

Quest is an amazing place and it was felt like being back in a practicals  class in school. Actually better since there were no marks to get or results to be doctored so as to make good grades! Quest is all about learning through one's own senses in a true scientific fashion.

You cannot imbibe science from textbooks, wikipedia articles and computer animations. I would strongly recommend that parents in the neighbourhood consider sending their children to Quest to open their minds to the true scientific method.

Contact

Mrs Malati Kelkar

4^th floor, Mont Vert Arcade

Pashan-Sus Road, Pashan, Pune - 411008

Tel: (020) 2587 0518

Email quest_kelkar@yahoo.com.