The Tesla Science Race is a challenging, but fun game that tells the thrilling story of Nikola Tesla’s life and work.
Word of Aleksandar Ignjatovic, Tesla Science Race Founder and Innovative Educational Project Coordinator of Tesla Science Foundation USA
Based on our many researches, results made us realize that children learn faster through the game. That’s really important for us as teachers and educators to prepare ourselves for a new technology age that children understand better than adults. That’s why we need to be well educated, for example in social media, that kids use very often and which could have many negative impacts unless We learn how to manage its use. Important thing is that social media apps are part of our everyday life; We cannot stop kids from using it, but what we can do is to help them to use it in a proper way, in order to get them well educated.
Lets have an example: Most commonly used Apps (TikTok, YouTube, Facebook etc.) have a lot of influencers that kids repeatedly love to watch. Most of the time influencers record and present things which are not suitable for all the audience, especially kids under the age of 18. Unfortunately, kids love to imitate and idolize most of the things they see on the Apps and for adults it’s almost impossible to stop them from watching trending internet content. Even if We would try to do that, it would cause a negative effect on kids. Kids would secretly apply the use by making fake accounts just to go and watch mentioned content.
That’s why it’s so important for us as parents, teachers and educators, to keep up with the modern age and understand how all the popular applications work. That way We will be capable of explaining to our kids, in a proper way, that their internet idols are just current animators, their popularity won’t last forever, their fame will fade away, and that they earn from our views and likes, without making positive (educational and innovative) influence on us. We can also make time to talk with the children about people from real life that they could idolize, for example – athletes, artists, scientists etc.
The question was – How can we successfully do that? The answer is – Through the game! GAME is the best way, as we mentioned above, for every kid to grow and learn. One of the innovative projects that I worked on, for which I got an Award ( Gold medal from Tesla science foundation Philadelphia ), is TESLA SCIENCE RACE, interactive game, where they meet life and work of Nikola Tesla, with lots of challenges that he went through before his final success (there kids can also realize that comfort is not the way to success, you have to accept the hard work so you could make your goal come true).
What is also important is that I work tirelessly to help children’s healthy grow with appropriate program ( STEAM, Montessori, Pertini didactics, Theory of Howard Gardner – a theory that was developed to document the fact that human beings have very different kinds of intellectual strengths and that these strengths are very important in how kids learn and how people represent things in their minds, Waldorf method of teaching – the learning process is essentially threefold, engaging head, heart, and hands—or thinking, feeling, and doing. The main goal through every game that I worked and currently work on is to find the true potential of every kid, their natural genetic predisposition, their type of intelligence and much more!
Another example: Parents often say that they’re gonna make their kid apply to basketball so he/she could be tall, but we know that without genetic predisposition there isn’t a way he/she could be tall, even with basketball training. Furthermore, parents have to look on the bright side of their kid – the side where he/she is the best of. We can compare this to the Tesla project where we’re seeking for childs most developed intelligence that can be nurtured through time.
The goal of the Tesla interactive game, as well as other projects I work on, with my Pertini team of psychologists and pedagogues, is for children to see how smart devices are just an aid in independent thinking and that they can be used in a healthy and natural way – through this game.
That’s why, in this game, a child can choose whether he/she is going to play with or without a smart device. Only that way, child realize that smart devices are our aid, and not the main thing to function with in life. When they see that they discovered something new by reading it from the card (in a game), they can realize that a lot of information can also be found in books and not just on the internet as the main source.
Books are a must-have thing in children’s lives – that’s why we have to repeat and remind them of the importance of finding information from the live text (where they use games without smart devices and find information on cards in Tesla). Book plus technology, is a win combination for a proper child to grow. I made a lot of other projects with Pertini toys team of pedagogs and psychologists and National safety sector; one of the main projects I currently work on is mix of games (science, art, sport) in a form of competition where we provided a real big stadium in Novi Sad, Serbia where competition can be realized. All that with coaches and referees included, pedagogs and psychologists who would make sure that children have a proper educative part of a competition about positive and negative effects of internet technology and modern age. Why is it important that competition includes many different segments? Because of what I mentioned above, not every child is capable of being successful in sport, or science etc. Competition that I formed is planned to be realized between Serbian and American/European schools, so the kids will realize individual talents (every single one of them is good at something). Let me also tell an educational story that I made, based on the same topic I’m talking about. There was a farm with a lot of farm animals and one dog as well. Dog was not feeling like he belonged there, since he noticed that cow gives milk, horse and donkey help with carrying things on farm and on field, sheep gives an amazing wool for kids to wear so they get warm through winter. Then the bird told the dog how his bark is gonna be useful one day, he just needs to be patient and he’ll see. And then one night a big wolf came to the farm and scared all of the farm animals. Only the dog was brave enough to face him so he started barking and scared the wolf, and then the wolf ran away and the farm was saved! After that, all of the animals considered the dog as the number one hero of the farm, their savior and best safety and friend. Dog realized that barking is his best strength! The point of the story is that every child has their strength and quality, which can be nurtured and developed. Projects, same as this story, can be developed and made into realization so our kids have the most qualited life, where they can find themselves, grow in the best possible way and learn to nurture their strengths and qualities. That is why we’re here, as adults, to educate our kids to work on themselves and learn them to realize that every single one of them is important with lots of potential they can develop even at a young age and later, too.