Ladakh-based Sonam Wangchuk is an innovator, engineer, and educational reformist all rolled into one. He is also believed to be the inspiration behind Aamir Khan's character in the blockbuster 3 Idiots . He is the founding-director of the Students' Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (SECMOL), a group that aims at reforming the education system in Ladakh.
Sonam recently bagged the prestigious Rolex Award for his creation ‘The Ice Stupas’. Sonam was in in Bengaluru to receive the TN Khoshoo Memorial Award 2017 that was instituted by Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) for his work on sustainability.
Sonam points out, "Sustainability and conservation have become a luxury among intellectuals. It should be taught to children in schools in ways that they develop a sentimental relationship with nature and respond to issues of ecological degradation. We need to redefine and reinvent our values and keep it in harmony with nature.”
HYDERABAD, TELANGANA, 10/01/2017: Motivational Speaker Sonam Wangchuk during the 77th Indian Public School Conference Principals Conclave at Hyderabad Public school in Hyderabad. Photo: K.V.S. Giri
The dry and cold desert weather in Ladakh and its over-dependence of water from glaciers was what prompted Sonam to come up with the idea of ice-stupas. He explains, "Ladakh has always been a cold and dry desert. Locals have found innovative ways to tackle this situation. I grew up in Ladakh valuing every drop of water. We were dependent on water from the glaciers for almost all our water needs."
He adds, "However, with rising temperatures around the world, the water supply, especially in the spring months had become erratic. We were faced with droughts or floods. I saw a block of ice under a bridge near our school in May. Using high school physics, we thought of making shapes in ice which have a low surface area for the given volume — like spheres and cones (so they melt slowly). To create the ice, we put a pipe upstream; the pressure it builds makes the water rise and come out through a fountain. Combined with the -20 degrees Celsius air, it forms an ice-stupa as it loses its latent heat and freezes.”
This he explains, offers a chance for students to use physics principles in real life. “The ice-stupas are presently being put to work on our plantations and will soon be deployed for the entire village."
Chennai, 02/11/2017 : Sonam Wangchuk, engineer, innovator and education reformist. Photo : S. R. Raghunathan
Learning, Sonam says should be practical and suited for the times, instead of being imparted as lectures, "The school system is a relic of the industrial revolution that has survived for more than 300 years. That system needs to be changed. We have seen the impact industrialization has had on our lives. In the history of humanity, from hunter-gathers onwards, learning was conducted practically, with the young slowly picking up life skills using their imagination, experimenting and discovering solutions for problems facing their communities. It is only in the last 300 years, that we decided that lecturing kids in a classroom are the best way to impart education."
Sonam says that he always questioned the teaching methods, right from childhood. "However, only when I began teaching kids to fund my college education did I realise that a lot of what was being taught had no relevance to the issues confronting us."
He hopes to start a university modelled on sustainable living. "We want to create live labs for working in the mountains and offer children the opportunity to create change for themselves and for the community."
