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HICS Learn

Learning science by doing it: building and running an instrument, working with what it records, and lessons that run offline and keep the student's working. Everything here is open to use, adapt and translate.

A lesson, running

This lesson solves the physics as you use it rather than replaying a recording, so a wrong answer is wrong for a reason the lesson can show. It runs offline, on a cheap phone. Drag it.

Free fall: h = ½gt²

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Drop height against time. The lesson solves h = ½gt² as you drag, so the graph, the ruler and the falling body always agree.

Nepali students are examined on their answers, almost never on how they got there. A lesson like this keeps the student's working, so a teacher can see where the reasoning went wrong and not only that it did.

The modules

These five modules run on the IESH kit with no internet. The kit broadcasts its own Wi-Fi and serves the activities itself, with the graphs drawn from whatever its own sensors are reading.

Many activities need no equipment at all; some use everyday materials; the richest ones use the station.

Climate & Atmosphere Reading the air above us — temperature, humidity, pressure and altitude 6 activities Soil & Agriculture Understanding what lies beneath — soil temperature, moisture and the land that feeds Nepal 5 activities Air Quality & Health What we breathe — carbon monoxide, air quality and the health of Nepal's atmosphere 5 activities Data & Technology Numbers, patterns and systems — data literacy for the 21st century 5 activities Environment & Society Nepal's three worlds, one climate story — from the terai to the Himalaya 6 activities

Mirrored from the kit's own curriculum, not written again for the web. Source: hics-iesh (v0.1.0). Downloadable PDF versions are being prepared from the same source.

Build the instrument

The instrument the modules are written for is open hardware. Its software and the offline portal are public. → IESH, from kit to station

Moderate · Raspberry Pi and hand-wired sensors
IESH v0.1 classroom kit
The first prototype: a Raspberry Pi with sensors for air, soil and gas, wired by hand, running its own offline lessons. The software is open source; a step-by-step build guide is being written.

→ Source on GitHub

In schools

The plan for each of the 50 schools: a full station in the school's science lab, these modules running on its own readings, and training for the teachers who run it. This is the plan we are raising money for. → The plan, and how to help