Mythological Storytelling Traditions: A Tool for Enhancing Science Literacy in India

Abstract

According to Albert Einstein, “if you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”. Same is the case with science. If we want people to understand science then we must be able to communicate it, and storytelling is one of the ways. The only difference between scientific and non-scientific mass communication is the expression of the emotion. Classical, folk/regional and tribal music, dance and drama have started to come into the limelight but the art of storytelling is getting extinct. Sometimes a scientific concept can be long and cannot be completed in a song or a dance but in case of storytelling it can be divided into episodes. This gives storytelling an edge over other art forms of communication. The second feature of storytelling is that the storytelling tradition allows the emotions to be expressed without distorting the scientific concept. But the basic idea of this project lies in connecting the required scientific awareness with the local storytelling. For this the story or a scientific concept cannot be presented as it is, it needs to be modified and here the focus is a seven-step method “CHANGED” which can be used for modifying an art form for using it in scientainment or for spreading awareness.