CREST is a unique child-centred and concept building curriculum which nurtures 21st century skills in the children from the very beginning of their formal education. In tune with current global practices, the two subjects Science and Social Studies have been integrated into one core area, CREST. It aims to help children make sense of life’s experiences, helping them connect and correlate knowledge across various topics within as well as across subject areas. It incorporates a holistic approach to learning by providing a range of learning experiences.
It focuses on children’s experiences and their active participation in order to develop a scientific temper. The prime purpose is to enhance conceptual learning while keeping individual learning pace and styles as important parameters. An inquiry-based learning process is employed throughout the CREST course to address students’ interest, build their own understanding and develop critical thinking skills by finding answers through inferences drawn from discussions, experiments and explorations.
With a clearly defined scientific principle, the content is aligned to meet the specific learning objectives and outcomes. To elucidate it further, let us take the example of the Topic ‘Weather’. Students begin the session by engaging in describing the day outside. They then explore about the different weather conditions through an Audio-video presentation and predicting the weather for the day. After learning about the weather symbols, they use the knowledge to explain the weather conditions in their city and create their own weather logs. As an extension work, the students are trained to create an emergency kit for bad weather conditions.
Visual information in CREST acts as a tool to help make connections, retain information and understand key scientific concepts easily. For a deeper understanding of the concepts, video links are also provided for each topic in order to encourage inquisitiveness and research capabilities. CREST as a subject ensures to foster curiosity, wonderment and a questioning attitude in students.
