Our country is rich in geographical, social and cultural resources. Awesome monuments stand testimony to this wonderful civilisation. The grandeur of our monuments as they stand today, represent the strong will, rich lives and impressive activities of people who lived before us.

Education has to be lifelong learning and science is everywhere, so learning from our surroundings is important. We humans learn and corelate better when a total picture is presented before us, what we call holistic learning. Pedagogy must evolve to make education more holistic – experiential, integrated with day-to-day life, inquiry-driven, discovery-oriented, learner-centred, discussion-based, flexible, and, of course, enjoyable.

The combination of experiential learning and ‘monumental’ legacy is an example of transformational education in the annals of pedagogical innovation.

Often when we visit a heritage monument, we explore it through the obvious lens of history alone. However, when the monument itself was built, it was everything but history. It was contemporary! Every monument’s inception and its development was based on the science and environment of its time. Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Biology exist along with socioeconomic and political factors.

Monuments are stores of culture, history, art, and architecture by definition. They narrate the tales of civilizations, the emergence and collapse of empires, the evolution of social mores, and the centuries-long progress in technology. When we visit any monument, some questions come to our minds -how did they build it, why did they select this place, what difficulties could they have faced, what was the idea of arches, what made the monument famous etc.

We want students of all ages to feel that:

• Monuments have stories to tell, beyond the obvious.
• The grandeur of science is part of our history.
• Simple experiments can bring us closer to the beauty of science that is all around us.