SCHOOL LEVEL ASTI FEYNMAN CHALLENGE

1.0 Introduction

The ASTI Feynman Challenge (AFC) is an online project developed and managed by ASTI.
The AFC is a team based activity with two or more participants (involving students, parents,
siblings, teachers, etc.) to develop a video. It is designed for them to work on the challenge
from home! The project is developed based on the Feynman Technique.

In AFC, the participants have to invent something simple (a teaching tool) that teaches a
scientific principle that they have learnt in school. The invention can be created with any object
that they find at home. The participants need to send a 5 minutes video with their explanation
of the scientific concept on their invention. This pilot project when launched saw a phenomenal
response with 636 teams registering from 7 countries. A total of 318 videos were submitted by
participants for the just completed AFC.

The Rationale for School Level ASTI Feynman Challenge (SL-AFC).

The Feynman technique is actually a learning tool used by the Nobel Prize winner Richard
Feynman to teach his students. He used to give assignments to his students to learn a concept
he is about to teach and asked them to explain it to him in a simple way that any layman could
understand.

Teachers can use this method to encourage their students to learn, particularly any complex
concept (especially scientific). Schools can organise the AFC as a fun activity for their students
in their schools. By doing this students will be encouraged to learn these complex concepts and
produce a video explaining these concepts. Once the videos are submitted, the teachers can use
the video to determine their student’s depth of their understanding of the concepts and develop
specific lesson plans for their students. The teachers can also share the best explanation or
winner’s video with other students and by doing so, all students will be able to understand the
concept. This will also encourage peer-to-peer learning which is one of the most important
aspect in classroom learning. We will also allow schools to do live presentation instead of
videos if they prefer.