Handmade Science and Brain-Ring Game
In May, EPS Yerevan and Artsakh Young Minds Sections won the best activity prize at 8th EPS Young Minds Leadership Meeting held in Erlangen, Germany.
Today, there are many problems that engage both science and society in Armenia and Artsakh that the Sections’ members have decided to find ways to solve step by step.
Many schools in Armenia do not have any laboratories, scientific equipment or even instrumentation to demonstrate simple science experiments. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, not all science departments of universities have the opportunity to provide practical and experimental lessons to show students science in real life. As a result, students do not have any experience with the applied aspects of science in general. The Yerevan Young Minds Section came up with a solution to bridge the gap between schools and universities by creating new, handmade, scientific tool-kits for school pupils with the help of students. The kits were accompanied with “How to Use” brochures with additional explanations of the physics behind the experiments as simply as possible, which was done by students as an additional challenge. So, students got practice by creating new instruments manually and pupils received them as new tools for being close to science at school. Tool-kits were made for 15 schools in different regions of Armenia, which are very far from cities.
The members of the Artsakh Section organised the Brain-Ring Physics Game in which 49 teams (a total of 294 pupils) from 7 of Artsakh’s regions and the capital of Artsakh Stepanakert participated. They designed a switch network for a Brain-Ring Physics Game, which included a monitoring panel. Pupils and students participated in the construction process and, as a result, learned how to design electronic devices. The main purpose of the switch network was to motivate children to be more active, gain some scores in friendly competition, and make physics lessons fun and creative. During the games, questions were asked to develop the logical thinking of students and increase their interest in physics. The winners of the Brain-Ring competition had an opportunity to visit the Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory. They gained essential knowledge in astrophysics and made some observations. During the activity, the Artsakh Young Minds Section collaborated with the Ministry of Education and Science of Artsakh. Now, section members are working on publishing a book with logical questions from physics and establishing contacts with different organisations.
