Sharing information

It all started from a circular to be attached in their diaries abt the Kargil Diwas- Light a candle on 26 July to remember the great men who we lost in the war.
A few came and asked but majority did not bother. They were born after the war and had no prior knowledge about the war.(the kids are born inbetween 2003 -04)
On 27  July I as a teacher it was time to make them aware where and what they need to inquire.
It was time to share the information about the Kargil war(1999). Have a open conversation on it.
And they all listened with interest-- asking questions.

Smart City Pune City

Smart City Pune City

Brainstorming

Concepts and Concerns

SMART IDEA

CITY

PUNE

AREA of DEVELOPMENT

RIVER side

(Mula Mutha River)

SMART SOLUTION

SKY BUS – (Connecting warje to Kharadi)

Network of shuttle buses connectivity from the Sky bus route.

Works on WIND- SOLAR- Energy

CONCERN

Growing Traffic Management.

Better – cheaper – easy connectivity across city

Sustainable resources and solutions

Reduce pollution

Pune City is very rich in its culture and heritage. It is surrounded by beautiful hills and a RIVERs – the source of live for any civilization to settle passes through the city. With changing time and urbanization the city has and needs to transform. The increasing population and expanding PMC boundaries the City needs some smart solutions to deal with it.

1. Efficient Public Transport – Sky Bus along the river line

2. Sustainable Energy System – wind and solar

We have a beautiful life line our River flowing across the City. If we use this channel to have Sky busses along the river right from Warje to Kharadi this will help improve connectivity and reduce traffic problems as efficient Public transport will help reduce private vehicles on the Road reducing pollution too.

·         By using the space along the River there will be no problem of any land acquisition as this land belongs to the PMC and can be utilized efficiently.

·         As the sky bus infrastructure can be raised far above the flood line level of the river, this will not hamper its service even during the rainy season when the river flows full.

·         People can avail the sky bus facility by use of smart pune citizen card, which will be like a debit card for using the sky bus and any other public transport city facility.

·         There will be shuttle bus services available from Point to Point from Sky Bus Stops. Thus networking in such a way that it connects the whole city efficiently with the sky bus route and creates an efficient public transport system.

·         These shuttle buses will work on electricity or Bio Diesel or fuel that is less pollutant.

·         Also along the river front one side can be used for building sky bus infrastructure while the other side can be utilize to have wind mill farms and solar farms to Generate energy. Hence making the whole transport system generating its own electricity and becoming self sustainable in itself.

·         Even this other side can be made greener by increasing plantation and making efficient public spaces and becoming the life line of the city again.

Smart Pune - Ideas to make Pune a better and smarter city.

 Yesterday 16/ July/ 2015 I shared with my class- MYP2 the

http://smartcity.punecorporation.org/

“Maza Swapna, Smart Pune” is a contest which is an effort to connect YOU as a citizen, to your local government.

Pune’s rich culture of social movements is the foundation on which this Samvad is taking place. Pune has historically been a culturally rich, educational and beautiful city but with urbanization all over, concerns such as land scarcity, resource shortage, pollution and traffic delays are increasing. Cities grappling with these concerns need to think of smart ways and leverage technology before things go out of control. The city of Pune, with its vision to become a cleaner, greener and more liveable city, plans to go smart with focus on mitigating concerns related to sewerage, water supply, road and transport as well as solid waste management.

Prior to undertaking this journey of transformation, Pune Municipal Corporation wishes to hear from ‘YOU’, the citizens who are the most important part of the city we call home. We invite you to come and participate in the Survey & Best Smart City Idea competition and share your views about how we can make Pune a better and smarter city. Your responses shall help us incorporate your inputs and emerge as a winner in the list of 10 cities that will undertake the smart city journey from Government of Maharashtra.

the reaction to this as soon as they came to know they had to write ideas, they were like No we don't want to do this except one out of the group of 15 students said he is interested and immediately noted down the link.

---- this is due to the fear that my idea will not win, is not good or i do not get ideas was my understanding. When i told them we will do this together a few got interested.

Today when again i got 30 min with them, i motivated them thats lets brainstorm for the same and find out areas on which we can work and need to improve to make Pune Better.

As I started the session, i did not make it compulsory for all to participate, but the ones who initially backed out got interested and started interacting more.

  

This session was more of sensitizing the students towards the finding the scope and design opportunities. Now in the next session -- we will start working on ideas.

Lets see how it progresses.....

Yesterday 28/July/2015
I had a talk with MYP2 kids on their understanding of what is design, they started talking about the design cycle, How the research and analyse before they come up with ideas and than create a product. they could relate to the cycle with help of examples and what they did in MYP1 in their product design class. But when i came to the question are they all creative some shy off the denying the fact everyone is creative. This needs to be made very clear that they all can think creatively and get ideas.

Than coming to the topic of better Pune Smart city, i had one student who came forward to share his idea. He spoke about upliftment of slum dwellers. The government already has redevelopment plans for them , but these people refuse to stay in the built up houses because the cost of water and light is more, which he gathered information by inquiring about it with his elders in the house. For this his solution was to subsidize their electricity and water charges and providing them with better employment opportunities and education for their children free of cost and free food.

I am happy to see the way he analysed a problem and thought about the solutions on what can be done. At the age of 12 to think on these line is also very good. he had more ideas but our lesson time got over and he could not share it with all of us.

He was motivated to work towards this project from the beginning, and i am hopeful that the rest of the class also gets motivated. :)

Anger beyond control

Almost into the second week of teaching MYP kids , today day started differently or rather on an unexpected note. As I entered my class MYP2  in the morning , what i saw was two boys fighting. Both of them were pouncing on each other , banging heads and biting. A very unruly behaviour which i had not expected fron the kids I was interacting everyday with. Anger beyond control and actions without thinking. This is a problem area with the Kids of this age group 11 to 14 and there needs to be some solution which needs to be designed to solve this problem. They need to respect each other and channelise their energies in more productive than destructive ways. 

Simple Product Design

Shared the video which showed the story of A Little Fish-Shaped Lump of Iron Just Won the Product Design Grand Prix at Cannes
http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/little-fish-shaped-lump-iron-just-won-product-design-grand-prix-cannes-165551

After Showing this vedio to Kids of MYP2 group students i asked them to write their Reflection.

Sharing a few of their Reflection.
The Kids of  IB are in habit to write what they understood and express this in the form of reflection.
MYP2 are students of age 12 to 13 years old.