Igniting Curiosity
My name is Kaan KARAHAN and I am a chemist.
I graduated from Bilkent University, one of the ivy league schools of Turkey.
I studied there for five years. Close to the end of the fourth year I had a summer training for one month in TUBITAK. National scientific and technical research institute of Turkey.
After this summer training I figured out that most of my chemistry knowledge is based on this summer training.
I was like… till this summer training I ate a lot of stuff but could not digest them.
Then I noticed that something was wrong with the current education system.
5 years of college education versus one month of summer training. I certainly prefer the second one.
Let’s keep this in mind and go back to roughly 28 years ago.
1986
At that time I was 10 years old and I was looking for dc electric motors which can enable to convert a plastic vehicle to a cable controlled dc motor vehicle.
Those were the times music was played on cassette players.
All those cassette players have dc motors.
I looked for each single casette player repair store in my town to be able to find a left over dc motor. I had the desire for creating I had the passion of science and technology but most of my time was wasted Just to find a single dc motor. Finally I found a couple of them converted my plastic vehicle to a cable controlled one… Vola! I Reached my goal
I could not stop there, disassembled some of the motors, checked out the parts inside them. There were coils, there were magnets, there were copper conductors, and I got more curious about how it works.
When I was in high school this disassembling process helped me out to understand easily all the theoretical knowledge about field theory; electric fields, magnetic fields, forces etc.
After many years, upon my personal experiences I thought that experiments, especially experiments which results with a product and a little theoretical information was crucial for educating People like me.
Considering all these personal experience I started up “creative minds” with a couple of Investors from education sector.
Let’s talk about What does the “creative minds” do
We thought that fist of all we need to get attention of the kids to science and technology. Get the kids curious about science related topics.
We need to Ignite their Curiosity: The driving motor of Innovation!
That is why we took stage with science theaters.
We named it as “Flying circus of science”
To get the idea of what science theaters are like we’d better watch a little trailer of our science theaters.
We perform various demonstrative scientific experiments on stage.
In our shows we basically tell about the scientific facts behind the daily experiences and phenomena while performing the experiments.
So far, we got pretty good results.
Qualitatively measured results…
Kids got involved
Kids got excited
Kids got informed
Kids got curious about the facts and tricks of the demonstrations.
We got attention from national TV channels.
…and we have got motivated more with what we are doing.
We ignited curiosity.
Let’s Keep the flame alive.
What would be the next step to have the kids at this wonderful state of curiosity where they got excited to?
It is hard to get attention of children for STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math)education with theories and calculations.
They need applications.
They want to touch.
They want to experience.
They want to assemble, to disassemble.
They want to create.
To be able to fulfill all these demands for the sake of STEM education
- We searched for a technological device or instrument which absorbed most of the technologies brought to life by STEM education.
- After considering current technologies and devices it seemed that the best candidate would be 3 D printing technology which would be our hub for a Deductive Method of Education. Top to down education.
- 3d printers came to life by 3 disciplines at its core, therefore we opened up three courses in our first science center; Edirne Creative Minds Science Center.
Robotics
Materials Science
3d design and printing
All these courses are at middle school level.
We had taken another step to increase the consciousness level of a finger generation towards science and technology.
Robotics:
Kids build their own robots. Take them to their parents and enjoy their existence by creators of something. Get familiar with the concept of robotics. Learn some physical laws at middle school level while building their robots.
Such as pressure
Forces
Speed
Dimesions etc.
Materials Science:
Kids first perform experiments then apply scientific methods such as keeping the data on tables.
Finally they get the scientific idea behind what they have done.
We have sets.
With manuals inside them.
This is a set about acid base chemistry.
For instance is about acid base chemistry. It starts with a magic trick.
After performing the experiment they learn about acids bases their properties how crucial are they in our daily lives such as Salisilic acid aspirin Nucleic acids, amino acids…
They improve their scientific Literacy.
3D Design and Printing:
In this course kids learn how to create objects with 3d design software. Print them through 3d printers. Touch them play with them and start to think about how he/she would improve it.
In one of our lectures kids design a self assembling Cube.
First they follow up the instructions and design it, print the plastic parts then place the magnets
It is an analogy for self assembling molecules which is very popular nowadays.
Then they have been asked for to design a spherical one or something which assembles after shaking randomly.
So far we built a couple of science centers in Edirne and in Istanbul.
It has a dynamic curriculum.
We regularly get feedbacks from these centers and keep developing our deductive system.
We keep data about how attractive are the experiments? Is it hard to do? Do the kids get bored while performing the experiment?
We serve kids of our society to get curious to be observers, to be Explorers and finally to become inventors and creators of systems and ideas that worth sharing for the good of human being.
