A group of educators from the Learning Studio traveled to Sarnath, India, to teach science inquiry to a group of 40 Tibetan monks. Following His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s mandate that Buddhist monks should learn about Western science as well as their spiritual doctrine, the Science for Monks program set to organize a series of science workshops for a leadership group of monks, whose job will be to teach science, in turn, to other monks in several monasteries throughout India.
We brought our hands-on, playful approach to doing science inquiry to this phenomenal group of students and thinkers. Over ten days we explored mechanisms, motions, and building technique with a Cardboard Automata activity; we then delved into the aesthetic qualities of light, reflections, and color; and finally we explored causality, as well as more advanced technologies, in a final collective chain reaction.
