How Frugal Innovation Inspires Students’ Resourcefulness and Creativity

Serving in “Jungle Mahal,” a remote corner of my country, I regularly witness struggle in my community. The majority of people belong to Indigenous groups, including Santhal, Sabar, Munda, and Majhi, whom have been deprived of basic amenities and struggle to get meals for their families. As a result, many of them have to focus more on earning a livelihood than on their children’s education, leading most of my students to become child laborers with minimal interest in continuing their studies. However, through our constant efforts, the scenario has changed.

I have not restricted my teaching to the stipulated curriculum. I try to teach creatively and the frugal movement is one part of my teaching – meeting sometimes with failure and sometimes with success. My students are attracted to these hands-on learning experiences and my focus is on core learning objectives, using simple yet effective techniques like demonstrations, peer learning, and project-based learning.

My school lacks educational amenities, so I motivate my students to create teaching and learning resources on their own by adopting frugal principles.

They are involved in the process of reusing materials, which emphasizes minimalism, cost-consciousness, and resource efficiency. For example, adopting frugal principles, my students have already created Frugal Scopes, telescopes, an earthen fridge, a frugal air-conditioner, a frugal water-purifier, and a solar study table.

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In all of these projects, we are focused on getting the most value from reusing common waste materials. By integrating frugal principles into my teaching, I am able to teach my students the importance of resourcefulness, and model practical life skills that benefit them both inside and outside the classroom.

Teaching students the concept of frugal innovation is valuable because it nurtures creativity, resourcefulness, and problem solving skills, particularly in the face of limited resources.

Involving the local community and families in the educational process is crucial for enhancing student outcomes, especially in underdeveloped regions. My students have significant family responsibilities; apart from household chores, they have part-time jobs and often cannot attend school regularly. To remedy this, we have recently involved families in the educational process through adult literacy which helps to build their understanding about how they can support their own children’s education.

On weekends, I teach the parent community, and my students enjoy joining in to teach their own parents. Thus, they are involved in community service and local improvement projects which connect their learning to real-world experiences. These training sessions for parents help to bridge the gap between home and school, creating a supportive environment for the child.

We also work hard to create a supportive environment that allows students to learn practical skills without neglecting their family responsibilities. In one example, a student named Anima designed a water-purifier system using hollow bamboo pieces, bamboo-charcoal and a cotton membrane. Through testing, it proved to remove a majority of waterborne pollutants and purify water enough to make it safe to drink. Anima got the idea for her water-purifier system from her grandmother who always strains water using pure cotton clothes with bamboo charcoal. After working for several months, we got the desired result and named the purifier “Elixir.” The frugal approach has benefited her greatly and she has earned her multiple awards for her innovation.

Implementing hands-on-learning in my resource-limited environment poses a number of challenges, including a long history in the community of very traditional teaching methods. I’ve worked hard to build understanding about hands-on learning methods with my colleagues, the education board, and the parent community. Receiving recognition for our student-led Frugal Scopes project in the 2024 Ciena Solutions Challenge Sustainability Awards has been a helpful way to garner support for our project-based approach where students are able to explore modern, sustainable, cost-effective solutions for real-world problems to benefit society. After receiving the award, students went on to collect additional materials from local residents and prepared over 30 frugal scopes for distribution to community schools.

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By incorporating elements from science, math, art and social studies into our project activities, I am able to show how frugality can be applied in diverse contexts, creating well-rounded learning experiences. The leadership roles that students take on in planning and executing frugal projects fosters leadership skills and independence. My primary goal is to align future frugal projects with global sustainability goals and foster environmental consciousness among students, making education both practical and impactful.

My advice for other educators who want to implement frugal projects in limited resource settings is to:

• Focus on local and reusable materials to reduce cost and promote sustainability.
• Collaborate with the community to help students long term.
• Encourage Challenge Based Learning to solve real-life problems and make learning relevant to students by empowering them to be changemakers in their communities.
• Explore the frugal movement and how it can align with sustainability goals. Teachers can influence students by modeling environment-friendly practices that focus on sustainability issues.
• Promote frugal principles among students by encouraging them to find low-cost solutions with minimal resources, and to appreciate the value of simplicity. This approach builds resilience and creative thinking in students.

• Register for the Ciena Solutions Challenge: Through March 6, 2025, educators can submit student projects and apply for a $3,000 Sustainability Award. Have questions? Email us at cienachallenge@digitalpromise.org.
• Showcase student work at the 2025 YouthMADE Festival: The 2025 YouthMADE Festival will be from May 5-18, 2025. Sign up for our newsletter on youthmade.org to receive updates about the upcoming YouthMADE Festival.