My desk has looked like this for the past one month. Papers with variations of layouts, fonts, different books and sites I had been referring to, for the content for my toolkit. First I had to fixed a size and decided to go with Saakshi’s suggestion of looking at the golden proportion and tried to fix the margins according to that! Trying to fix a size that had minimum paper wastage, the right margins and fonts, etc itself took me a whole week to get right!
After this, I wrote out the text that went in and chose the images that I wanted in the manual, to make a master sheet. Then came the tiring job of fixing a navigation system and layout. I still have to get it proofread but this is a test print I took in college. After Mr.Vishwanath’s and Rustam’s feedback, quite a few things including the cover, have changed. I will be going to the printers for an actual test print and binding to check for errors in the margin and colours tomorrow or day after. I will put those images up once I am done.
Now that this is nearly done, I am trying to work on the video that goes with the toolkit. I am currently trying to shorten and transcribe it and will have to fine-edit and add the subtitles once I get feedback.
I didn't want the kids to paint random things on the tank. One of the objectives of doing this was for them to have a 'space' for themselves on the tank, for them to feel the connect with the rainwater so that they would treat it like 'theirs' and drink it and help maintain it as well (though I hear it doesn't really need too much maintenance once its fully built). So, the previous day, I had handed out sheets to them and told them to imagine that they were rain. So the theme was "If I was rain, what would I do?" They had to think about it and come back with a drawing which they would paint on the tank the next day. The responses varied from falling into peoples mouths to going into rainwater harvesting tanks to becoming honey and falling on the flowers.
Translation of what is written above:
If I were rain,
I'd be life to plants.
I would rain on flowers,
By drops; sitting on them.
I pour from the sky and hide at the bottom of buckets and pots.
I am rain.
I don't have any colour, shape or smell.
If I am rain,
I'd come dancing from the sky.
Drop by drop, I fall from the sky,
laughing as I come to the earth
- Sushma
Translation of what is written above:
If I were rain,
I would jump from the sky and join the wells, seas and other water bodies.
If I were rain,
I'd be a lot of help to the people.
If I were a rain drop,
You can see me only during the rainy season.
Now it is summer!
So you can only see me in the tanks.
- Manjula
Aim: To bring about a feeling of connect and ownership for their water tanks and water
To get the community interested in what the students are working on by doing something novel that attracts their attention
To get the larger school community involved and feel a sense of ownership for something they are part of and have to maintain
Activity: All the students in school could come together with interested teachers and parents to just paint their water tank. An act like this allows them to personalise their plain, boring looking tank and also make them feel like it is a part of them, their work. Working together, with the community might give the community a feeling of joint ownership. They all can come together and help each other maintain the tanks that are going to provide them with clean water to drink.
Lokesh laying his foundation in chalk! Then they went over it using the paints.
Their own rainwater harvesting system
Sushma is falling as rain into containers that can hold her.
All done with Gopal falling down as honey!
Manjula getting drenched in the rain
We even got the principal to come and paint his rain! The next day, people in the neighbouring village asked me if I had painted the tank and mentioned that they had seen it as they were passing by the school. I felt so happy! I told them that it was all done by the students and they appreciated it. The students even marked their sectors with their initials and showed their 8th and 10th standard friends what they had drawn. They kept re-visiting their art work through the day.
They have started building the rainwater harvesting tanks at the school! The students help already by watering the cement structure everyday. We all poured buckets of water to keep the tank wet. It will take another month to be fully done, then they get clean water! This tank's capacity is about 32,000 litres.Thanks to the students from Trinity college who decided to give their grant to build tanks in schools in this area. It would have been ideal to paint this tank, but while waiting for it to get done, we painted the other big water tank at the school.
Using the fluoride testing kit, we went around a village (Killarlahalli) and tested various water samples and stamped the source, depending on whether the water was drinking-worthy or not.
Aim:To spread awareness about fluoride and the amount of fluoride in different water sources.
To make facilitators and students work together (Could even be an informal data collection activity)
To get the community interested in what the students are working on/doing
To get them to realise that rainwater is a good alternative and that they should drink that instead
Activity:The students could be split into 2 groups, or more- depending on the number of facilitators available. They get one fluoride testing kit each. They can walk around the village and neighbouring villages and test various water samples with the kits they are provided.(The previous exercise would have helped them identify various sources where they get water from). They could draw from this and test water from the taps in their homes, the kere’s, the well water that they all drink and even the water in the tank in the school. They can compare the fluoride levels in each of these water sources and see how much higher than the permissible levels it is.
To leave a mark and make it slightly more interesting (drawing from guerrilla art), each time they test a source, they can leave a smiley or a sad face sticker near the source, depending on weather the fluoride level is above or below the permissible level. This might be a small way to get the larger community attracted to this as well. If someone sees this, they might react to it and ask around what this is about. This might lead to in-direct awareness through the children and also create dialogue.
These are the water smiley stickers that I am going to ask them to stick on the different water sources, depending on weather they have permissible amounts of fluoride or not.
I first started a conversation on permissible fluoride levels (to see if they remembered- some of them did and some didn't!) and ask them what the positive and negative effects of fluoride are, and what they can do about it. I then quickly showed them how the kit worked.We tested the water that one of the students got from home, with had 2mg/l fluoride. So, they stuck a sad face on the bottle. (The symbol of thumbs up and down was new to them! So I had to keep pointing up and down with my thumb initially to say good and bad! Soon, the picked it up though and at end of each test pointed their thumb up or down accordingly!) Then I told them about the exercise and we set out to the neighbouring village.
We first tested the main water tank in that village which had 1.5mg/l, which is not too bad. So we stuck up a happy smiley. The whole village crowded around to see what we were doing and the kids explained to the community what they were testing and that their water had 1.5mg/l, which was good.
Lokesh sticking up the happy water smiley
Then, while walking around, we found a house which had a rain water harvesting tank! They decided they wanted to test the water the family used to drink before, in the open tank, as well as the rain water that is pumped out from this pump, which they use for drinking now.
The rainwater had no fluoride in it
This is the open tank the family used to drink from earlier. This had 2mg/l
The maximum amount of fluoride we spotted was 3mg/l in a water sample from a household. We told them about the importance of drinking rain water.
After we tested many household samples, two tanks and two rainwater samples, we went back and on the way, discuss the different levels we found.
Inference:Through this activity, the students were able to see for themselves how much the fluoride levels are in the water bodies they see every day. Since they are the ones testing it, it might have had a bigger impact on them (more than when it just spoken about in class). It also added a layer of fun to it as they imagined it to be a mini treasure hunt where they were little scientists and tested the water themselves and leave marks for other people to talk about. It also made it a novel idea around the village and was discussed by people who spotted these water smilies, thus spreading awareness. They asked the kids what they were doing and what it was for. It is also an activity that involves the teachers and the larger community, thus bridging the gap.
More images of this activity can be viewed in this slide show
Finally, after about nearly 20 days, I am visiting the school again. Thanks to Mr.Vishwanath and Ruchika, I have managed to procure two fluoride testing kits, something I desperately needed for my next big activity. They both work a little differently.
The Jal Tara kit has a sample bottle and glass tube which needs to be filled with the water sample. A chemical reagent called Zirchonyl Arilazine is added (2 ml to 50 ml of water) and the glass tube then needs to be shaken and left aside for an hour. The change in colour can be compared to the ones given in the chart by looking at the chart through the test tube and the mg/l of fluoride can be detected and noted down.
This is simple enough for the students to do by themselves, but since my activity involves testing many water samples around the village, waiting an hour to do so might not be the best way to do it :P
The second kit I have is more instantaneous. I thought we could use the one above to test samples in school, go out to test lakes and wells and come back to have results of the water in school the school. In the second kit, a similar process is followed by adding a few drops of reagent to a sample of water. The solution changes colour immediately to indicate the mg/l of fluoride.
In the second post above this, I have explained the aim of the activity and what I would like to do with these kits.
Aim: To create little nudges from the associations obtained in the previous exercises through a playful mode.
Activity: The students can make little ‘mascots’ or ‘emoticons’; characters that they derive from their association with water. (Insights from the previous exercise might feed into it). They can use scrap material, clay, play dough, cut up pieces of paper, found objects, beads and buttons, M-seal etc. to create their mascot. After they have made their mascot, they can tie it up to their personal ‘squirter’ a device made from a plastic bottle that squirts out enough water to wash ones hands or water a plant. Soap strips or a small piece of soap could also be tied to this. They can carry this around with them during school hours or lunch hours to constantly remind them about this association they have. This might also be useful for them to wash their hands with soap near the plants when they go to their open loos or wash their plate etc. with minimal amount of water. If it is a small bottle, only the amount you squeeze comes out. This can later be refilled and used again.
Inference: Through this exercise, I hope the students are able to visualize their association and turn them into a ‘nudge’ that reminds them subtly at all times that they should be doing a particular thing; whether is washing their hand or throwing garbage into the bin or pouring enough water after they use the washroom (one topic that each student chooses).
Assumptions
> They would find it easy to make and use and carry it with them when they went to the loo
> Since they already knew their associations, they would find it easy to paint it onto their bottles.
> They would have a problem working with new material- like cutters and acrylic paints.
Reactions
This exercise changed drastically as I could not source enough and a variety of materials for them to make their mascots. I guess that was a constraint I had, since I had to carry all the material and travel by 4 buses to get there! Instead, I decided that they would make their squirter but would paint their associations on it instead of making a mascot that represented something. This device is something that these children can carry with them, anywhere they go, specifically to the open loos that they use. It makes hand-washing and easier and fun task for them to follow. The first day, I showed them what I had made, and a few of them who had bottles made their own. The next day, I told all of them to bring bottles that were thrown away at home to make their devices. I was really surprised when Soumya got this bottle to class to ask me if it was ok to use it. She had clearly understood what was needed and didn’t want to be messy with the hole. This bottle also had a cap to prevent leakage. I was really impressed.
They loved the soap strips most of all. The novelty of this itself might make them wash their hands for a week, but sadly they do not have access to paper soap in the village. Instead, I told them to cut up a piece of soap and tie it to their bottle, once the strips were over.
They quickly pierced their holes, tied up their threads and sat down to paint. This now, was a disaster. They just wanted to be done with it and get the soap, so that they could go and use it. However much I tried telling them to paint their links with water, most of them drew flowers and some even copied from the others! They were at peace only once they attached that soap. Chowdamma and Sushma wanted to show me how theirs worked! They even helped each other and worked together so that they could wash both their hands properly. Here is a video of that.
Aim: An activity to show them a cause and effect action using water test vials and introduce them to the Bio-Sand filter
Activity: I could demonstrate to them how to make a bio-sand filter along with SODIS and tell them the importance of these two in conjunction. They can test the water they put in, before and after filtration using the H₂S bottle test. After that, they can make their own sand filters individually or in groups and keep them at school and use the water that comes from this filter.
Inference: Through this, the children might get to know that the water can be impure and there are methods by which they can take initiative to get clean water for themselves and their class/community.
Assumptions:
> Some of the water we rest is going to be bacteriology affected
> The students might be excited enough to make it and use the water from this filter
> They might go home and try to make it and share it with their family and friends
> Would ask me if they could test other water sources near their homes
Response
I showed them a video on how the sand filter works before they began, so that they would have an idea of how to go about making it. In groups of five, they made their filters, each competing to make theirs faster and better than the rest of the groups. They kept coming to me to 'check' if they were doing it right. It was the first time they were working with m-seal and cutting up material. They found it very exciting. Once their m-seal had dried, we went on to text the filters. One groups failed because their straw was cut at the wrong place and it started to leak, but four others worked right. They looked at it in awe when muddy water went through one end and clear water appeared through the other. One of them volunteered to come up and explain what she understood of the whole process. She was so enthusiastic that she even made diagrams of the filter in her book for herself to remember :) I was so happy there were students like this. The best moment was when they all came screaming saying "ma'am straw, ma'am gum" and I asked why they wanted these things? They replied saying they wanted to make one for themselves at home. They also tested the water that came out using the H2S strip test to find that is was not bacteriology contaminated. Some of them took bottles back home to test the water in the keres near their homes.
Sushma's notes on how the bio-sand filter works.
Inference
Introducing them to AT like this, something that they can make and see the effects for themselves was a good experience. They probably enjoyed it too. After the activity, when I asked someone to give me a summary, many of the kids were shy and some didn't know! So, if learning by just looking at it in textbook, none of them would have known. They said they had been studying about sand filters since 5th standard, but had never made one, even though it was so easy to make it.
Testing the filters they made
Sushma explaining to the class what they had done that day
