Snakes are the venomous devil abundant throughout the world. Albeit, it is which place in this blue planet where snakes ,The devil which even finds its mention in the Holy bible, do not reside? Land where such reptiles are restricted makes it sound quite safe for the residents. The small island nation of New Zealand in the southern hemisphere which has no native snakes in its land territory. It is a snake free nation.

Reason for no such existence of snakes is quite pondering as its very near country Australia is a home of some of the most venomous snakes. Scientists acredit Ice age as well as its isolation as some of the prominent reasons. One theory describes that New Zealand separated from Pangea (Huge landmass of all continents connected several million years ago) much before the snakes ever made it to this planet or its near around region.  The tectonic drift of this island hence prevented snakes to take its journey to this nation. Only native mammalian animals apart from humans are one species of bat.

New Zealand has declared itself snake free and do not even have them in zoos for exhibition. Bringing snakes as a pet or through sea route is strictly prohibited under the laws of the nation. This rule is passed in keeping in mind the safeguard of the native animals and birds. Snakes are a predator to various species residing in this island and may prove as a threat. However two species of sea snakes can be rarely noticed along its northern coast which can be given exemption from terrestrial snakes. All together it makes the nation really interesting to have no snakes living on its land. Imagine the first real time encounter of a new zealander or a kiwi with an Indian king Cobra!!

    

We talk about Aeroplanes, Ships, Bullet Trains making our life so fast and easily functioning. They are all inspired by our mother nature. Let’s take examples from our day to day life, designs of velcros, the shape of bullet trains, the smooth blades of wind turbines and what not, all these life changing ideas are inspired by nature. Believe it or not, engineers turn to nature to tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that Biomimicry is the future.

By now you might be thinking what is Biomimicry? Biomimicry literally means the imitation of life. It is emulating nature’s time-tested patterns and strategies to seek sustainable solutions and solve human problems. In short, biomimicry is the process of taking the innovations that exist in nature and applying them to technology.

Connecting “Senses” and “Sensing”: The gemstone for the next-gen smart sensors

Nature is full of mysteries and these mysteries have many incredible examples of functional materials. One of them is Structural colour -the production of colour by tiny structured surfaces which interfere with visible light, as found in butterfly wings or opal gemstones. Alike, peacock feathers have brown pigment, which reflect blue and green light. Influenced by them researchers have developed a colour-changing material which could be the ‘keystone’ of smart sensors in the near future.

In a study published by the journal “Advanced Functional Materials”, researchers have shown how to produce photonic crystals containing a minuscule amount of graphene resulting in many desirable qualities with outputs even observable by the naked eye. They are intensely green under natural light, but change to blue when stretched and become transparent when heated. This makes them an attractive source for visual sensing applications. This method represents a simple and inexpensive approach to produce multifunctional graphene infused synthetic opals. These crystals are excellent indicators for visual strain sensors or integrated time‐temperature. These flexible photonic crystals can even predict when an earthquake might strike next.

 Few of its many potential applications are:

1. Time-temperature indicators (TTI) : The sensors could be able to give visual indication of food or pharmaceuticals experiencing undesirable results. 
2. Bio-sensing Systems: The photonic crystals can be used as tissue scaffolds for understanding human biology and disease. If functionalized with biomolecules could act as highly sensitive point-of-care testing devices for respiratory viruses offering inexpensive, reliable, user-friendly biosensing systems.
3. Safer Healthcare: A wrist band which changes colour, indicating patients if their health worker has washed hands before the examination. This property of sensors could help improve technique in sports players.
4. Fingerprint Scanning: Results with high precision, well-defined ridges and shape-memory characteristics are   attractive for biometric and anti-counterfeiting applications.

References:

1. https://www.engineersireland.ie/Engineers-Journal/Technology/pretty-as-a-peacock-the-gemstone-for-the-next-generation-of-smart-sensor
2. https://interestingengineering.com/biomimicry-9-ways-engineers-have-been-inspired-by-nature
3. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254906399_Nature_inspired_design_Strategies_towards_sustainability

I hear and I forget,

I see and I remember,

I do and I understand.

By the age of one, we all have the painful encounter with the experiential learning when we tried to walk, failed, fell and cried. And even though it was an unpleasant and discouraging exercise, in the end we all made it. Experience of a person develops from its childhood. They learn to speak their mother tongue from what they hear. They learn to walk by the steps they take in their infancy. Such basic needs are intact to a person from the experience they gain. Therefore, it is vital to make modern education on an experiential basis.

Experiential learning literally means learning that involves experience or observation or both. Through every passing year the ideology of learning keeps on changing, keeping in mind the requirement of the time. The biggest impact of learning style is often observed on children, as it moulds them accordingly for the future. Hence the most appropriate learning method is the one that is not only equipped with the tools of the present but also provides opportunities to adapt in the future. And the current requirements list has skills as well as the technique on its priority and both of them can only be derived from experience and observation. 

Consider a situation in which one teacher asks a class of first or second standard “What is the quotient and remainder after you divide 12 by 5?”. And another teacher asks “If you have 12 rupees and you have to buy candies out of it of 5 rupees each. How many candies will you be able to buy and how much money will you be left with?”. In which case the class will grasp the concept faster. You can see the difference and so the studies say that Retaining knowledge becomes faster. The knowledge which is gained from the books are theoretical however to make it etched in the minds of the students experience of the read knowledge is required. To take it to a more realistic level, modern technique of machine learning namely Generative adversarial network is based on learning from previous experience. 

Fundamentally, an  idea of learning from experience caters to the ability of humans to learn from its failure. Apart from inculcating in modern education, experiential learning provides moral assistance. A human learns more easily when he does the task. We all remember sitting at the last benches and daydreaming about the weekend plans while the history teacher telling us about our vast, proud history or a chemistry teacher teaching us various reactions. What a great opportunity it would be for a person to study history in a museum or Chemistry in a laboratory i.e., seeing it, not just reading it. Experience never fades rather it piles up each day and helps the child to proceed toward its goal.

With the rise in ratio of qualified individuals, the race in future is expected to become tougher along with more sprinters and narrower tracks. Every year a humongous number of young minds graduate from institutions all over the world. But quite opposite to the ideal conditions of all of them transforming into a workforce. We experience a surge in unemployment. The sole reason behind this is the uneven score of these people on the scale of skills and real time based knowledge. For instance, if a pottery student has only seen someone doing pottery or in the worst case has just read about, the pots that he will produce are unlikely to have a smooth finish or the strength that the vessel must possess. This makes it very clear that knowledge without experience and skill can do good to none.

In addition to this the experience and observation of learning can awaken passion for it or even a realization of whether you really want to pursue learning in that field. Experiential learning is the window from which you can look at the world and future ahead with the perspective of that knowledge. In short, experiential learning will aid children to have foresight and not be myopic in any aspect. 

Way back, even Aristotle told that,

“ For the things we have to learn 

before we do them, 

We learn by doing them.”

SALUTATIONS !!!

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