Category Science

As schools take to online teaching, are students really benefiting from it?

With schools remaining shut due to the pandemic, they were left with no choice but to take classes online. Schools across India ensured students did not have to miss a year or lag behind in terms of syllabus by asking them to attend classes online.

While this was a bold move. It brought to the fore India’s unpreparedness for online learning. Most school teachers are not trained to take classes online. Teaching online is a different ball game compared to a physical class. It requires a different, more interactive and practical approach than the theoretical approaches followed in a physical class.

Meanwhile, children too are not prepared for an online class as their attention span is short. Long hours in front of the screen can drain them out apart from affecting their eyesight. The connection with the teacher is also lost as all the other students are logged in simultaneously.

But the biggest problem faced by schools and students alike is the lack of infrastructure and the digital divide. Many parents don’t even own a smartphone that their children can use for classes. Moreover, many households, especially those in rural India, do not even have internet connectivity. This has led to several students missing out on classes, on their parents having to sell whatever they can to afford a smartphone with an internet connection.

What’s the update?

On September 19, 2020, the Delhi High Court directed private as well as government schools to provide gadgets and an internet package to poor students for online classes. The court noted that not doing so amounts to “discrimination” and creates a “digital apartheid.”

It further stated that separated such students from the class can create a sense of inferiority which may affect their hearts and minds.

 

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How robots are helping in fight against COVID-19?

With the government and the World Health Organization advising people to maintain six feet distance and wear mask to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, hospitals and businesses took to robots to tend to people’s needs.

From robots patrolling the road and making announcements, to serving as a nurse, and connecting people with their loved one. These machines have stood with our country in the fight against the virus.

Zafi, an interactive robot was developed at COVID-19 isolation wards at Stanley Medical College and Hospital in Chennai. The robot was designed and developed by the SASTRA University and Propeller Technologies, Trichy to help doctors and nurses maintain social distance while caring for their patients.

Zafi Clean and Zafi Sterlise designed to help maintenance workers of COVID-19 wards in government hospitals.

This coronavirus-themed ground robot is used to spray disinfectant at residential areas in Chennai.

Robots check body temperature and collect basic information about people at a private hospital in Bengaluru.

A robot nurse developed to combat COVID-19 and care for patients by Coimbatore-based startup Dotworld Technologies.

ROBO-COP, a robot used by the Chennai police to make announcements about COVID-19 and importance of staying indoors.

Mitra, a robot used by COVID patients to communicate with their relatives, is seen inside an elevator of the Yatharth Super Specialty Hospital in Noida.

Cobots are here

While many are worried about robots replacing humans in the workplace, there has been an increase in the use of cobots in workplaces. Cobots or collaborative robots are robots that work alongside humans than replace them. They are said to improve productivity, helping humans focus on essential tasks. Take Amazon for example – the company has been using robots to do the heavy lifting while humans can direct them.

Cobots are being used by some companies in a pandemic scenario to mitigate the spread of the virus.

 

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What are the causes of melting ice in Antarctica and Arctic?

This February, Antarctica witnessed its hottest temperature on record, resulting in widespread melting of nearby glaciers. During the period, images showed drastic changes in just nine days. Then came the news that Antarctica’s colossal Thwaites Glacier is melting fast. If the glacier were to collapse, it could lead to an increase in sea levels by around 64 cm. In mere two days, the Milne ice shelf lost over 40% of its ice over in July. And then, that ice shelf – the last intact one in the Canadian Arctic – collapsed into the Arctic Ocean. The month following this, residents of Italy’s Aosta valley were told to evacuate, fearing that a huge portion of the Mont Blanc glacier could collapse. The same month also brought in the worst news so far. A study – of nearly 40 years of satellite data – published in the journal “nature Communication Earth and Environment” said that Greenland’s glaciers have passed a tipping point of sorts. It means that glaciers on the islands have shrunk so much that even if global warming were to stop today, the ice sheet would continue shrinking. The study said “the snowfall that replenishes the ice sheet each year cannot keep up with the ice that is flowing into the ocean from glaciers”. The melting of several glaciers globally has raised concerns on further sea-level increase. Throughout history, sea level have increased and decreased substantially. But the recent rise has crossed the average rate of the last few thousand years, and is increasing sharply and swiftly. If this tends to continue, it could lead to dramatic changes in coastlines the world over, caution experts.

Even as scientists and environmentalists the world over fret over melting glaciers, a new study in August appears to offer some solace. The study by Northumbria University, published in “Nature Geoscience”, revealed that the blanket of rock debris offers glaciers more protection from climate change than previously known. The expanse of rock debris on glaciers, a factor ignored in models of glacier melts and sea-level rise, could be significant, the study added.

 

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What has been the biggest bushfire in Australia?

After raging on for several months since the previous year, one of the worst Australian bushfires seasons and wildlife disasters came to an end in March 2020. The season was far worse than any prediction, and according to the BBC, “burned an area of land the size of South Korea”, killing or harming almost three billion animals. The wildfire events for the year did not end there – they have raged on in several regions of the world, destroying different kinds of ecosystems, ranging from tundra to rainforests. The Brazilian Amazon has lost large swathes of rainforests. In just the fire seven months of 2020, more than 13,000 sq.km. burned. The story is the same in the Pantanal wetland region of South America – by September, “fires had charred an estimated 24,000 square kilometers”. The tundra ecosystem of the Arctic region wasn’t spared either – in July and August, “abnormally warm temperatures spawned an intense fire season in eastern Siberia”, according to NASA. When the season waned, it had emitted 244 megatonnes of carbon dioxide. But the worst of all was yet to come – wildfires in the U.S. Even as the eastern part has been pounded by rains, the West has been battling a series of wildfires. By September, across 12 American States, as many as 100 large wildfires have burned 4.6 million acres. These include timber-dominated ecosystems. India too suffered its share of woes hen in May, forest fires in Uttarakhand left nearly 175 acres of land – part of forest ecosystems – destroyed. And today, we’re back to staring at Australia’s bushfire season. Experts say wildfires are a natural part of many ecosystems. But “the scale, intensity, speed, location, and timing of the recent infernos stand out”, perhaps warranting a closer study of global warming.

As wildfires continued to rage in Australia early this year, New South Wales (NSW) officials air-dropped more than 1,500 kg of sweet potatoes and carrots. These were for the endangered brush-tailed rock-wallabies. It is said that this was the largest such food drop ever done in NSW. The move was also important because most of the 15 species of wallabies are endangered. Sharing on social media an image of a wallaby nibbling on a carrot, an Australian minister called the marsupial “One happy customer.”

 

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Has the government diluted clearance norms for business benefits as claimed by the concerned public?

In the last few months, the new draft Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) 2020 proposed by the Centre has been drawing a lot of attention. EIA comes under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, and ensures projects, including industrial and infrastructural, are duly given or denied environmental clearance based on expert assessment. The first EIA norms were notified in 1994, and they were replaced with a modified version in 2006. The current government says it has redrafted this version to make the EIA “process more transparent and expedient”. However, the new draft has caused outrage among the media, activists, environmentalists and the public, and has raised the concerns of even the United Nations for various reasons. Among them are post facto clearance (projects can come up without environmental clearance); the exemption of several large industries and projects from public consultation; shortening the period of public consultation hearings; increasing validity of the clearances for mining projects and river valley projects. The draft is seen as giving more power to the government while diluting public involvement in protecting the environment. However, Prakash Javadekar, the Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, has said that valid suggestions and objections raised on the draft EIA Notification 2020 will be considered on merit before finalising it. He also said “public consultations were still underway and suggestions can be sent up to 120 days from the date of publication of the draft”. He said it was wrong to assume that “ex-post facto environmental clearance will be given to the cases involving violation”. Similarly, the draft does not talk about diluting the process of public hearing, “instead it is stressing on making it more meaningful”, he said.

This May, gas leaked from a polymer plant in Vishakhapatnam, killing about a dozen people. It was discovered that the plant had been functioning for more than 20 years without clearances. The National Green Tribunal, the country’s top environmental court, has sought a high-level probe into the incident. The same month, due to lack of proper adherence to environment norms, the natural gas of an oil company in Assam had a blowout and caught fire. The oil field borders the Dibru Saikhowa National Park, putting “all life forms in the vicinity at risk”.

 

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How coronavirus taught us a gentle lesson?

The COVID-19 pandemic is easily the most defining aspect of 2020, altering lives and reshaping livelihoods globally. However, one of the few positive chapters in the COVID story is how the pandemic-induced lockdown showed us an improving environment the world over. According to a study published recently, as all types of “social, economic, industrial and urbanization activity suddenly shut off”, improvement in the quality of air, cleaner rivers, less noise pollution and undisturbed wildlife became evident. For instance, water from the Ganges at Haridwar and Rishikesh saw a “500% decrease in sewage and industrial effluents” after lockdown. Also, an IFS officer shared on social media that the Himalayas’ Dhauladhar mountain range in Himachal Pradesh – 200 km away – was seen after 30 years, from Jalandhar (Punjab) “after pollution drops to the lowest level in 30 years”. According to the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service of the European Union, a drop of approximately 20 to 30% of PM (particulate matter) 2.5 was observed in large parts of China in February. Meanwhile, there were many instances of animals and birds freely taking over space occupied hitherto by humans and human activity – think nilgai on Indian roads! And happily, with fever noisy vehicles on the road, sonorous bird calls became a lot more audible. But, this does not mean we can be complacent. The lockdown was only a pointer to how wonderfully our planet responds when we treat it gently.

The lockdown saw a spike not just in good air quality but also in rumours and “wild” imagination! Amidst (false) news of dolphins swimming merrily in Venetian canals, information about a critically endangered Malabar civet spotted in India for the first time since the 1990s was widely shared on social media. However, the creature sauntering on a Kerala road junction turned out to be its cousin, the small Indian civet – neither rare nor as endangered!

 

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