Ravi Sinha and Adithi Muralidhar https://birds.hbcse.tifr.res.in/ Smartphones and other digital devices are ubiquitous now even in rural areas. This easy access to technology everywhere has opened up new and creative ways to design learning experiences beyond the limits of print media. It has also provided space to introduce topics that don’t receive much attention in the curriculum, though they are immensely important. One activity that has evolved with technology and already has an active community is that of bird-watching. Bird-watchers undertake observations for various reasons — curiosity, research, conservation endeavours or learning. However, the formal environment science curriculum offers little opportunity to raise awareness of such activities among young people within the curriculum. There are also implementation and structural challenges if one attempts to integrate bird-watching into the curriculum. For instance, the modular period (generally of 30-40 minutes) structure in schools is not suitable for typical bird-watching, which requires one to spend many hours out in the open looking for and observing birds. Moreover, the observations extend over a long period of time, weeks or even months, which again becomes challenging to implement within the classroom setting. An attempt to integrate birdwatching as a module in the EVS curriculum was made through the Vigyan Pratibha Project, which has a dedicated unit on how students can begin their birdwatching journey. Some of the earlier issues of Teacher Plus (see resource list) have carried articles on this project along with suggestions on how teachers and students can include bird watching in their classes. While it may be difficult to integrate bird watching into the curriculum in a short time, interested educators can find several strategies, ideas and apps to initiate their students into bird-watching even while they are learning from home. In this article, we share about one such project which is open-source in nature. We call it “Birds at HBCSE” (https://birds.hbcse.tifr.res.in/), and hope that this will excite teachers, students and interested people to observe the birds in their surroundings, leveraging a new media interface. About the Birds at HBCSE Project Taking inspiration from Discover the River project (https://coneixelriu.museudelter.cat/en/birds.php) and using pictures we already had of birds on the HBCSE campus, we created a responsive web page that works across platforms. Users don’t need to login to explore. The site is useful in the following ways—when one places the cursor on the image of a bird, its name is visible and when one taps on the bird image, they get to hear that bird’s call. This interactive

Ardra Balachandran
While science need not be the choice of profession for every student, the development of a scientific temper is a must for students to evolve into rationally thinking individuals. But are we able to achieve this objective with the science education we are imparting today? What do parents, teachers and students think of the science they are learning? Is there room for improvement? What can or should be done to make learning science more effective? We find out.

Sandhya Iyer
Science curriculum in school concentrates only on the laws, concepts, and discoveries and inventions by scientists. We never get to know the person behind these discoveries. A little knowledge about the human being behind the scientist, the times they grew up in, the challenges they faced will go a long way in our understanding of the science they developed.

Yasmin Jayathirtha
By hearting definitions, memorizing facts and remembering formulas is not what science learning is all about. Learning science is a process that involves exploration, experimentation, questioning and discovery. While primary school requires science to be hands-on and in high school, students are already in the exam mode, middle school is where science teaching-learning can actually blossom. This is the stage where activity based learning and inter-disciplinary thematic learning can help spark that scientific temper in children.

Magdalena Kersting
The human body is an amazing resource that helps us experience this world and yet it is underutilized in our classrooms. When it comes to education, the mind has always been given prominence over the body. Here are three ways in which a teacher can help her students further their understanding of science through their bodies.

Adithi Muralidhar
Nature has served as a major source of inspiration to man—in poetry, dance, drama and literature. The field of science and technology too has been influenced by nature. In trying to find solutions to many modern day problems, it is to nature that man has turned. When nature can inspire, influence, teach and encourage, then why not turn nature into a science classroom?

Adithi Mathur and Ratnesh Mathur
Why is it that we insist on teaching children science? Science is to be lived and experienced as it is all around us. When we teach science, we approach it through facts and definitions and kill any curiosity there is in children. Instead let us leave them alone to ask their own questions, find solutions, make their own observations and imbibe science.

Rrishi Raote
Man has always been an inquisitive being. Did asking questions lead to the birth of the first scientists? Why are periods in human history defined by metals? How were the first cities for human habitation planned? How did science evolve? Our understanding of modern science will be greatly strengthened if we have a knowledge of the history of science.