Arvind Gupta on Pitara Kids Network

Matchstick Models

Thu, 05 Dec 1996 19:30:07 +0000

Matchstick Models [Illustrations by D.K. Sharma]

“Science, in essence, is a viewpoint — a worldview, an ability to critically examine phenomenon. It is an ability to see patterns, structures, sequences, trends, commonalities, regularities and generalities — in short, an ability to perceive and discover an order in the universe. From this point of view, every object is a piece of scientific apparatus and every child a budding scientist.”

AHA! Books: Arvind Gupta

Thu, 25 Apr 1996 10:42:46 +0000

An individual booklist is found to reflect the compiler’s own interests and biases. To that extent this booklist does not lay claim to any objectivity. It contains some extremely fine books on education, popular science, maths and children’s stories. Over the years, I have been actively involved in translating and popularising many of these books. At times we have been successful in bringing out low-cost, Indian reprints like for instance The UNESCO Source Book for Science in the Primary School, Publisher : National Book Trust, India.

Little Toys

Wed, 01 May 1996 11:02:48 +0000

Introduction :
It is an irony of modern consumerism that junk products are packed in tough cartons. While the frail human body consumes and digests the junk, it is the environment which has to grapple and reckon with the tough, non-biodegradable waste. And, in the process, humans become sick and the environment decays.

Today we can see city parks littered and garbage dumps overflowing with tetrapacks — empty cartoons of Frooti, TreeTop, Jumping Jack or Dhara. These packets are made with layers of different materials — plastic, aluminium and paper — all fused into one multi-walled laminate. We know that aluminium does not rust and plastics do not rot. These materials are energy-intensive and take a heavy toll of the environment, which helplessly chokes under the debris.