Introduction

Turtle is a system-level information design project done in collaboration with two of my batchmates Ameer Hamza and Shankara Vigneshwaran. The project aims to promote value education among India’s youth with the help of a re-defined model of the olympiad.

Background

In an age of global connectivity through social media, there is also a rise in the instances of cyber-bullying, hate speech, fake news, and misinformation across these platforms. We felt the need of making the younger generation aware of moral and ethical values.
We studied the Sustainable Development Goals set in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly and intended to be achieved by 2030. After discovering the need for Reduced Inequalities and Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions as development goals, we decided to tackle the inequalities in present-day India.

An Analysis of Inequalities

We learned about the different types of Inequalities in present-day India, which are majorly due to financial and social class. Discrimination based on Gender i.e., sex, gender roles, Caste i.e., occupation, untouchability, exclusion, and Community i.e., religion, area, language, occupation, ideology, are also prevalent in the country. We did a thorough background study on each topic further to understand the severity and the effects of these prejudices.

Deciding the Target Group

After understanding the topic to be taught, we tried to narrow down the project’s user group. We looked at all the student age groups of urban school-going children and understood their goals and ambitions at that particular age and how it affects their day to day activities.
Since we were to incorporate and teach the students about the equalities, we looked at different teaching methodologies and the extent to which one should teach and where one draws a line between helping a child to take his/her decisions or rather train them to do so.

Of Tests and Olympiads

After brainstorming for a while, we converged on creating a revised and re-defined olympiad. We learned about the history of tests/examinations/evaluations and also learned about the assessments conducted currently. We also defined and re-iterated the final goal of the project, which is to promote value education, and articulated our thoughts about why we specifically chose the olympiads.

Turtle and the Turtle Olympiad

We created an organization and a brand that aims at promoting value education for children and nurturing a generation of children to achieve an ethical and moral society.

Plan of Action

To develop and design an Olympiad examination for school children to make them more aware and sensitive to inequalities persisting in the present society, and expand its outreach to make it accessible to the most underprivileged people.

Why Olympiad?

• To motivate students to learn.
• To evaluate and grade students.
• To add variety to student learning.
• To identify weaknesses and correct them.
• To obtain feedback on your teaching.
• To provide statistics for the course or institution.
• To accredit qualified students.

About the Olympiad

• Nationwide olympiad in India
• Conducted annually
• For school children of class 5th onwards
• Different level for every class
• Different editions focused on a certain value each year
• 2 levels - pen & paper, interactive

Creating Brand Identity

We chose turtle as the name of our organization as we associate a turtle with calm, serene and patient personality. The wordmark was created with sof rounded corners making it cheerful, inviting and sophisticated for the younger generation. The colour palette is an analogous scheme with a gradient, drawn from the colours of oceans, the natural habitat of a turtle. Rubik font was used to complement the cheerful yet sophisticated feel to the brand identity.

Proposed Timeline

The following was the proposed timeline for the project but due to the pandemic the pitch was not made.

Details of the Examination, Type of Questions & Study Material

The test will be of limited time i.e. 2 hours. The question paper would consist of Multiple Select Questions (MSQs). The questions would test the attention and thought given to topics, force the participants to consider different views and opinions, and not be directly learnable from the text without further thought.
The following will be the syllabus of the examination.

• Cases from Ethics Unwrapped
• Real-life stories
• Traditional folk tales
• Questions from School textbooks
• Provided stories/videos and magazine.
• Pop Culture

Ethics Unwrapped

Ethics Unwrapped is a program within the Center for Leadership and Ethics (CLE) at the McCombs School of Business. The CLE is changing how leaders learn with some of the leading minds in leadership development, academic research, an extensive repository of ethics-related teaching and learning materials, and groundbreaking work with some of the world’s largest brands.

Through cutting edge research and innovative content, the CLE fosters life-changing educational and developmental experiences so that every student, corporate partner, and leader has the capacity to lead and craft their unique voice to create happier, healthier, and more productive work environments. Our plan of action included a collaboration with the team, and with the help of their material, we could conduct olympiads with different themes each year.

https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/

Felicitation

Certificates to be provided to all the participants. Merit certificates and medals to the top 3 students from each class. Selected top 100 students get a chance to attend a week-long workshop conducted by the Turtle, toppers in that will be honored with other prizes.

Keep Learning. Thank you!

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