The last few days and weeks have been just  running from one thing to another , it almost seemed liked I was caught in a race where , things just evolved around getting tasks done regardless of what time of  day  or night it is , but I shouldn’t complain , things were getting bottled neck and certain things did require immediate attending to .Apart being art integrated learning facilitator at school I also handle photography and now video shoots too . So  with launch of our own Media Unit at the school where I presently work, had me pretty much tied up .

The making of the Media Unit …

Over the years we have emphasized reuse and recycle , when the idea for  media unit ( which would mainly focus short video clips )  was  on , it was  bit of challenge and at the same time interesting to make the light set up out of scrap . I had a great deal of help from the staff at the school but the initial work kicked off with the help of the Resident Assamese staff mainly Tarun and Naresh.

We got books carton boxes from the stores ( thank you Satyan Sir 🙂 ) . then old net poles from the swimming and PE dept which gave shape to the light stands ,

we needed the poles to stand straight and not wobble  , so we had some concrete hollow bricks from last years renovation lying about that came in pretty handy for our base .Tarun checks if the pole will slip in to the hollow bricks hole . Then it had to be tied down or cemented , we went with cement

One thing about the media unit was that it had to be portable , we should be able to shoot at various places . so it had to be ‘make shift’ , so with the carton boxes covered with diffuse paper our very own soft boxes were done. Next was to find a suitable place for our test shoots . We decided the library for the reason it was one building away from the main school building that kept the noise down .

Trying different positions

Tarun and Mukesh ( our swimming instructor ) volunteered for the test takes 🙂

And finally on Nov’14th  it was set up and we did our 1st shoot , with Mr Abdul Latheef Naha – reporter from the daily newspaper  -HINDU  (who also inaugurated the media unit ) was interviewed by one of our students Aashi of Gr 8 .

The Science Project :

This was a last minute entry , the science project for the pair of Gr 5 girls Aysha and Ziya . When I heard about it , it seemed very interesting . Again it was recycle and reuse !! – This time it was to show the effects of a land slide and its causes.For this we need a mountain structure , yeah for sure mountain would be easy with plain mud , but it would turn too heavy to be moved or transported . So in came boxes , Styrofoam, and plastic bottles, one over the other fasten down with rubber adhesive fevicol SR . it took use sometime to build up the structure and initially our idea to cover it with a flex sheet and then cover the same with mud or clay – but it didn’t work out as planned the then we tried to cover the whole with a sheet of cloth – then shape the  structure  to finer bit  using clay

Getting the clay ready :

For these two young ones it was a fun time with their hands in the mud !!,  -as they kneaded hard mud to soften up – they were one pair which stayed on till the the very end

Now, to cover the cloth sheet with mud . As as we did it started to take shape of the mountain . Soon we were a team of 2 gr 5  students and 3 facilitators, shaping our mountain , While the girls and Mr Hameed worked as scouts to get appropriate materials to build the vegetation Suhail and myself , we worked on layout and shaping it and adding in the vegetation .

Finally it was a task in it self to transport it ..not coz of the weight but the size ..At the exhibition , they presented it well and did their best  . Though they didn’t get any position for it , but the little duo and their  science project made news in the Daily News Paper the very next day , there was a write up about their whole concept and the place where this had happened , and how this incident ( the land slide) was not to be forgotten and all . I guess the hard work paid off for all of us with that .  Hey the kids were happy that they got to be famous 🙂 …I was glad the whole thing stayed all in one piece till the exhibition was over . 🙂

The two showed their appreciation by giving me and Suhail a “special treat !!! ” the next working day at school  😉

THANK YOU AYSHA and ZIYA !!  🙂