Sports need not mean distraction from studies. Rather it can make science more interesting. That is what a programme claims to achieve by converging passion for learning with the thrill of sports.
The international education consultancy and migration services provider, IQuery Australia, launched its STEM-fit initiative in India. An event demonstrating the scope of STEM-fit, a programme correlating sports and education, was organised at the Sports Authority of India (SAI) auditorium, with students and teachers from various schools across the city in attendance. It was also attended by SAI research fellows.
Sports scientist Jim Lee explained how academics could be enhanced through sports. “Our initiative focuses on research-based concepts of unravelling the intricate relationships between movement patterns and the realms of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) to evolve academic performance,” he said.
Lee checks the pulse rate and oxygen saturation percentage of students. (Right) A race by students after which their heart rate would be measured
“STEM-fit is a science-based research programme which the schools can adopt to make science more interesting. This will make even the science-haters fall in love with subjects dealing with science, technology, engineering and mathematics. It will also make teaching the subjects easier,” founder and CEO of IQuery Australia, Ganesh Koramannil told the audience.
Lee elaborated: “We give students the opportunity to collect data that is meaningful to themselves, and more often than not, it's by doing activities that they like, such as playing sports. Then we help them learn the STEM subjects using their own data.”
After a strong pitch on why schools should implement the programme in their curriculum, Lee and Koramannil led the students and their teachers to the SAI football field to demonstrate how STEM-fit could be utilised.
Primarily, three exercises were performed to demonstrate the process of data collection for STEM-fit. While Lee took charge of tracking the heart rate of the students after multiple rounds of 20m shuttle race, Koramannil supervised tracking the ball speed as the students threw tennis balls with all their strength. In the final exercise, Lee and Koramannil divided the students among themselves and got them to perform high jumps. The height of the jump was then measured.
Oral rehydration solution (ORS) and glucose were kept at hand to keep the students energised even under the bright sun.
As the students and teachers left for their schools, a small break followed, after which the SAI research fellows joined in. Koramannil and Lee explained to them how the programme aimed to uplift students' interest towards the subjects. They further spoke about how this can help sportspersons improve as well, based on the collected data.
By then the weather had taken a turn for the worse and it started raining cats and dogs. Due to the inclement weather, no further demonstrations were possible on the field.
“We are elated with the response that we have received from schools across Calcutta as most teachers have shown interest in this initiative due to increased detachment from sports that we see nowadays in students, and our method of integrating sports with education has garnered enough attention. Due to the extended summer vacations, we couldn't promote the event better as the schools were closed but considering these challenges, the response that we have received is satisfactory,” she added.