Learning Math and Science the fun way

MANILA, Philippines - Israel-based IDEA (Innovative Hi-Tech Learning Environments) Center visited recently the UP National Institute for Science and Math Education (NISMED) in Diliman, Quezon City to train educators in utilizing robotics to teach math and sciences to students so they can derive fun and fulfillment in learning these otherwise difficult subjects.

The two-day training workshop for public high school teachers of NCR, particularly Quezon City and Regions 3 and 4 was arranged by IDEA Center’s local partner, V.G. Roxas Co. Inc. which made arrangements with the Department of Education to propagate the robotics way of teaching and incorporate it in the school curriculum of both elementary and high schools.

Dr. Nira Krumholtz, head of IDEA Center and creator of the K’Nex Robotics Kit, told The Star she innovated the program after over 10 years of working with Lego, the play company that produces educational fun tools for kids but whose plastic pieces are not as versatile as the K’Nex plastics she used for the program.

Lourdes Christine Caldeo, product manager of VG Roxas Co. Inc. and a physics teacher herself, said a kit costs anywhere from P70,000 or more, depending on what goes with it—whether solar powered and other collaterals— that is why IDEA Center made it clear that it can tailor-fit whatever the requirements of grade and high schools are depending on their income status. One kit can be used by 5 to 6 students per package.

“In fact, we can make a simpler but more affordable kit for the lower income municipality schools or even the most high tech robotics kit, as what Quezon City Hall has ordered for its high schools since it can very well afford to buy the more expensive ones,” said Moshe Lahav, president/CEO of Phantom II Ltd., which manufactured the kits for distribution to Asian markets.

So far, this K’Nex kit of robotics learning program has been taught in schools of Hongkong, China, Korea and Thailand and is being brought for the first time in the Philippines, Lahav said.

The goal is to create national and regional robotics competitions so that students and teachers from these countries will better sharpen their teaching and learning skills to be competitive in a fast-changing technological environment, Krumholtz said.

In Israel, she said, robotics is obligatory for both students and teachers in elementary and secondary schools which is why she developed different levels of robotics curriculum for all levels of the schools in her country. In the Far East, she added, they have been learning robotics well ahead of the Philippines.

The company produces different packages for biology, physics, math, technology and computer science, Caldeo said.

Lahav said the K’nex kit is being used by 6,000 schools in the United States, thousands in Spain, Latin America (3,000 schools), thousands in China, hundreds in Korea, Hongkong, Thailand, Canada and soon the Philippines.

In fact Thailand was the first to put up a special center inside a mall and this might eventually be the trend in the Philippines, Caldeo said.