Curiouscity, where learning meets fun

What is childhood without curiosity. Children, especially early learners, have an insatiable thirst for knowledge, which needs to be catered to in order to make them truly educated. Traditional instructional methods, including books and classroom settings sometimes fail to nurturing young minds. Experiential learning is of key importance here and Curiouscity in Bengaluru is setting new benchmarks in sparking scientific curiosity in children of all ages. Started by an Anil Chinniah and Dr Shonali Chinniah, both of whom left a lucrative career in US to return to their native country with a mission to make a difference. Curiouscity Science Discovery Centre, located off Sarjapur Road, is not a typical museum or tuition space — it’s a bold initiative created by educators and scientists from IIT, IISc, and Cornell to bring science alive for children. Built over a 2-acre green campus, the centre has already welcomed over one lakh visitors since it opened in July 2022.

“It is open to school groups on weekdays and families on weekends. It also offers free or subsidized workshops in rural areas and low-income schools across Karnataka and Pench”, says Dr Shonali Chinniah, founder of Curiouscity, Bengaluru. Excerpts from an interview:

What was the inspiration for setting up Curiouscity and what's the concept on which it is based?

Curiouscity is our endeavour to spark creativity in children. It is also an attempt to provide wholesome 'edutainment' in our city, where entertainment is usually limited to a visit to the mall, the movie or a restaurant. We are also trying to encourage parents and grand-parents to visit along with children in the hope that the whole family is involved in this process of continuous questioning and learning.

Our core belief is that instead of training children to pass exams and "answer questions", we want them to "ask questions". Our workshops are designed to get children to try out different ideas, test things, learn how to observe, experiment, collect data and discuss results. A child who asks a question is interested and is learning.

We also want to ensure that children of all social and economic backgrounds have access to a place like Curiouscity. In order to do this we charge schools according to their school fees for our weekday science workshops (and give the kids a free pass to come back and visit on the weekends). We run our workshops in Kannada and Hindi for government schools. We also want to encourage girls to enjoy Science, and ensure that feel no less equipped as boys in science related careers.

What are the key features of Curiouscity?

There is a section for young children for science play. Here we encourage children to interact with science toys, building, bubbles, sand, ball walls, and a small animal interaction centre. We realised that if families came to visit — older kids had younger children…. So this space was designed for them — kids from 3 to 7 years old. No science posters are in this zone.

The second space is designed for families to have fun with illusions. Our dark room is also created with fun elements in mind and a lot of play with light. This section has a limited amount of theory.

Our third zone is the science hub around the Sangam Circle. These are our theme-based science labs, such as, Electricity and Magnets, Light etc. All of these exhibits are hand built by our team — the exhibits cover the main topics in each of these areas, and almost all our exhibits are interactive. We have also created escape rooms in this area. So far have about 4 escape challenges, 2 for younger children (8 to 12 years or older)- and 2 for older children (13+). The escape rooms are designed to encourage critical thinking incorporating basic Science concepts.

Our 125 seater auditorium is where we do science shows, school workshops, plays, and so on. It has also been used by a few schools for their school events.

Last but not least is our outdoor space. We have nature walks (for bees and butterflies), ecology session walks, water conservation walks, waste management awareness related exhibits.

What were the challenges that you faced to make it a reality?

Raising awareness with our customers and staff about eco-friendly initiatives in our café and not using product resulting in a lot of plastic waste has been a challenge. For example — we are attempting to not offer bottled water at the cafeteria as we use water filters and Kamba’s to keep water cool - however, some customers demand it. Keeping our grounds clean of chips and biscuit packaging is a constant effort - and every day in the introduction - we ask kids if they can help us keep Curiouscity clean.

What has been the the impact so far?

In the three years since we opened our Curiouscity, we have had more than 15,000 students from schools across Bangalore. On Weekends we have already reached 1,00,000 visitors. We regularly have visitors from outside India, and from outside Bangalore. We have done several parent/child workshops too. Our teacher training workshop in the Pench rural school districts was interesting. On day 1 we had 3 teachers attend and by day 3, the room was full, including their head science teacher.

What are your future plans for this initiative?

There is so much scope for growth at Curiouscity - new science programmes, partnerships, plays in science, utilising our 125 seater theatre more effectively, creating outdoor programmes and so much more.

This year we hope to create a Miyawaki forest and expand on our ecology and conservation outdoor programmes too. Our current school programmes target middle and upper classes, and this year we hope to start school programs for younger children (mostly related to nature) and conservation.

We hope to partner with other science groups - on topics such as Astronomy or a Tinker Lab for kids. We are hoping this year to launch our family day out Corporate programme. We have designed a whole fun day of activities for families… all we now need is a corporate that is willing to give us a try at the centre.

We also wish to start a small shop of cool science toys that we build inhouse.

Last, but not least, we are in the process of trying to work with government schools around our centre, to give them free access to our facilities. Hopefully we can reach out with teacher training programs and give them any support they need with their science programmes.