The Indian government has been successful in strengthening the rates up to 90% of children’s enrolment to school through their initiatives like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and Mid-Day Meals. However, the real problem is in their learning outcomes. In this area, a lot of qualitative research has been done and it is always been acknowledged that learning practically through experiments and activities have been more impactful than learning theoretically. NCERT has also found this approach of experiential teaching meaningful in context to the national curriculum.

Among the schools situated in remote villages and semi-urban area, the learning mechanism followed is still the traditional chalk and talk method. Students are not equipped with basic labs to perform the experiments. No teaching aid is readily accessible for the teachers to experientially teach subjects like Maths and Science. Anoobhuti is that nexus, trying to solve this problem between the students who are at present less exposed to such initiative and experiential learning.

^{A teacher teaching Science through experiments}

It was just a usual visit to one municipal corporation owned school, where the creators discovered the corporate-sponsored laboratory. But the equipmentwas unused and unexplored due to fear of them getting damaged. When the students were questioned on the subject of science, they were unable to answer. During the visit, it was also noticed that there are many rural schools where they have no room to set up a lab. This is where Anubhooti, a learning solution for science education, was envisioned.

Anoobhuti Learning Solutions Pvt Ltd (formerly referred to as Experiential Learning Solutions ELS) is a social enterprise, working with IIM-C Innovation Park incubation centre. The initiative is dedicated to enhancing the standard of education in primary and secondary school through experience-based learning method. Anoobhuti has collaborated with educators, CSR Partners, government departments, and schools to accomplish this aim. It is intended to create and incorporate experience-based learning approaches to improve the overall level of rural and urban school education through interventions such as providing hands-on learning kits, teaching methodologies, rural school mobile labs etc.

^{Students learning through doing activities}

Anoobhuti along with Seva Sahayog Foundation- an NGO Partner, has developed 2 products both with different interventions. One is Community knowledge centre- It is a state-of-the-art research laboratory for science and robotics subjects that engages around 60 students a day and runs throughout the year. The students of(5th std to 10th std) enjoy full 8hrs at the centre and learn the basics of science through activities and exercises. The other successfully implemented product by Anoobhuti is the Lab in Classroom Concept which is a mobile science lab to imbibe learning practices for students. The experiments and activities are designed in such a manner that they will cover the abstract concepts in all the branches of science. It covers the entire syllabus with hands-on activities, games and science practical. Both models are actively running from last 3 years and they have now collaborated with more NGOs to benefit more students. 

The training of teachers for mobile app and assessment of Anoobuti’s flagship product, a lab in the class is something distinctly proposed from others in the same domain. Also, the maintenance cost of the product is low and is simple to handle. The teacher is the centre of the product’s offering and hence empowered with easy to use, readily mapped content accessible in the classroom. It helps the teacher to teach the science subject with more experiments in the class itself.

^{Kids learning through Anoobhuti’s Products}

Anoobhuti has successfully installed 720 school kits in Maharashtra at Zilla Parishad schools. They have partnered with companies including Ultratech cement, JSW steels, Yes Foundation, Huntsman India, D-mart, etc. to deploy school kits as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives and have reached to 20,000 plus students. Taking the COVID-19 scenarios into consideration, Anoobhuti is intended to expand to the retail sector, where the kits can be made accessible at a price that individual students can afford. Secondly, they are also now switching to some digital material that teachers and individual students can access remotely. The product development is in progress and the first kit design is planned by June 30th.

Students will listen and they will forget, they will see and they will remember and if you make them do, they will understand. Anoobhuti has been successful in implementing this by providing opportunities to learn science through experiments and apply data and ideas in a real-world situation where they too play an active role.

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Impact-Story is a series on development and CSR interventions leading to some impacts on the ground. If you have a project, innovation or intervention that has changed the lives of a few people or a community, please share a brief note at csr@ngobox.org. Our Team will get back to you after validating the information for a detailed coverage.