Written by Revathi Narayanan
3rd and 4th March 2022 — the same scene played out in selected schools and Agastya Science Centres from Hyderabad to Sikkim, Delhi to Kuppam and more. One could feel the excitement in the room. There they were, three girls and three boys to a team, five or six teams in the room, bright-eyed, waiting eagerly for the Moderator to begin the International Women’s Day (IWD) Quiz on Women Scientists.
This Regional Round of the Quiz took place in ten centres across the Agastya regions in early March 2022. The winning teams took part in the final Virtual round held on 8th March. About three hundred and sixty students from our partner schools took part in the main competition.
The process started at the end of February. The Instructor Master Trainer (IMT) team that manages training and academic content for the Agastya sessions was looking for ideas to celebrate IWD in a way that would be exciting, inspiring, that would tell the stories of women who had broken barriers. The team wanted it to be a learning process for students and for themselves, with content that would help in our day-to-day work.
Our brainstorming took us back to a challenge in the daily sessions in the Mobile van and Science Centre. In the Agastya activity-based learning sessions, students sit in groups. Each group selects the name of a scientist. As part of our work to enhance gender-sensitive practices, we had decided that at least half the groups should be named for women scientists. And this is where, we usually got stuck, rarely going beyond Marie Curie and Kalpana Chawla. There just wasn’t enough common knowledge about women scientists!
So this became the core idea for IWD: what better way to celebrate it than by talking about the inspirational lives and work of women scientists. The quiz format would bring the “Aah, aha and haha” into the event for children. We wanted girls and boys to see that women had done great science even though patriarchal social systems ensured that their numbers were far fewer than they would have been in a more equal society.
Often, IWD events become “of women, by women, for women” events. It is very important to involve men and boys because gender discriminatory practices affect us all — women and men, girls and boys. It was very important for us that girls and boys learn together about the achievements of women scientists.
The next step was to make sure that children got reading material for the quiz. We needed a level playing field because all children would not have equal access to information. We decided to write up the material in-house. Children were told that questions would be based only on the material that we circulated. Our categories included women who had won the Nobel Prize (Just 57 of the 900 plus winners since 1901!), women scientists who should have won the Nobel, Indian women scientists of the past and present.
The information on each scientist included their main scientific achievement, their pictures and the challenges they faced. Many were unfamiliar Western names, but children were able to learn them. We tried to simplify the science as much as possible. The IMT teams translated the material into local languages and students did a great job preparing for the quiz in a very short time. During the quiz, teams were told to discuss and then give the answer to make sure that everyone participated.
The Regional quiz was opened up to many more schools and children as part of the IWD celebration across Agastya regions. About 2000 more girls and boys participated in these events on 8th March. The Agastya North region conducted the quiz online.
All the effort was worth it since we were able to tick all the boxes at the end of the event
Was it fun for the children? Was it appropriate to IWD? Did we all learn something new? Did we try out a new way of engaging children in an exciting way? Did the event lead to preparing more learning resources?
It was a resounding “yes” to all of the above.
Feedback from some children sums up the event very well -
“I did not win, but I learnt so much and enjoyed the event”
“Khoob mazaa aala (we enjoyed so much). “
