Students’ creative spirit comes to the fore

DUBAI — Survivor — the two-level game aimed at destroying all ‘robots’ in plain sight and just surviving till the end — is the brainchild of 14-year-old Parth Ingle.

A 10^th grade student of The Millennium School, Dubai, Ingle and his friends designed the game over a period of two months using Unreal Development Kit, a free software for designing games. All students of grades 5 to 12 actively participated in the Cross Curricular Exhibition organised by The Millennium School. The exhibition encouraged students to display creative models and projects in line with their subjects. The classrooms had colourful and creative displays using content from the curriculum prescribed by the Central Board of Secondary Education - International (CBSEi). The students displayed projects of subjects such as English, mathematics, science, Arabic and other second languages, physical education and computer science.

School principal Michael Guzder said: “The entire experience has been enlightening. The whole point of this exercise is in line with what the CBSE-i prescribes for the students — learning by doing. The best bit is that children learn by themselves, because the CBSE-i does not have any prescribed textbooks; it is very forward thinking. The children are not just encouraged to create projects, but also work towards collaborative thinking among other activities.”

He added that parents have been very supportive.

Headmaster Saleem Khan said: “The activity is an extension of classroom activities. It encourages collaborative work among students.”

The students said they thoroughly enjoyed working for the Cross Curricular Exhibition because it involved a lot of artwork, group work and creative activities to put the exhibition together.

Grade 9 student Sanjana Girish (13) created a miniature model of the Titan IV B, the largest unmanned space booster used by the US Air Force. “I used thermocol, sandpaper and paints to create the spaceship. It was a group effort and it took us about two weeks to put the project together,” she said.

Indu Sreeya, Harini Thiyagarajan and Amrita Arora, all aged 13 years, created a colourful Geo mall using what they study in Geography as a background. “We loved doing this. It took a lot of team work to put the project together and the efforts put in were totally worth it,” said Sreeya. Take Anthony Vincent (13), who was part of the team that developed Survivor, for example. He wants to become a graphic designer when he grows up. “I am a hardcore gamer. I want a career in designing games,” he said.

dhanusha@khaleejtimes.com