an 8yearold is learning principles of science in front of a cooking flame a 6yearold is toning up on a treadmill during gym period in school and a 7yearold has a coach giving her lessons on how to survive and thrive in life a 12yearold meanwhile is taking fast steps towards adulthood with an early start to his jee preparation with learning and lifestyle concepts changing fast kids of today are becoming familiar with the grownup life much before growing up it has its rewards but there are pitfalls toosakshi virmani explores through four examplesnewtons laws nigella stylealvira moved to gurgaon with her family in 2017 leaving school and friends in bangalore was hard for the 11yearold who just could not adapt to her new home she went into a shell but also developed a rebellious streak often taunting and bullying her peers deeply worried alviras mother enrolled her in classes combining culinary arts with science inspired by harvard universitys online scienceandcooking course believing it would help soothe her daughterin the studio however alvira would be uncooperative deliberately spoiling what she and others had prepared but the changes slowly began to show six months on not only was alvira mingling with her peers she also learnt about the role heat and matter play in cooking about molecular structure and chemical reaction and why sedimentation is importantone of alviras course mates ankit enrolled for a very different reason he loved science but was a picky eater his parents thought the course would make ankit less finicky about food today the eightyearold has learned to cook and appreciation of his culinary skills from other kids in class has encouraged him to sample his own recipes as wellthe kitchenlab is an example of how learning spaces have changed in an age of information overload and short attention spans rukmini das the educationist behind the concept says a lack of engaging learning spaces for students has given rise to a disparity where attention is either on supersmart children or on those with an aversion to studies our programme does not believe in defining right and wrong for kids they should learn while having fun and understand what they are learning says ipsita dasgupta a teacher at the studiobut why food because food is universal every single child and parent is interacting with food daily to use it as a medium of learning says dasgupta and because cooking calls for planning execution and problemsolving dasgupta adds its ideal for equipping children with life skills so a typical class will focus on one ingredient through which a student can learn several concepts a session say on salt will look at how it is formed the different kinds of salt and even the politics of salt featuring a history of the dandi marchlets move to an outdoors classroom nowon a windy sunday morning in february the sky specked with gliders drones radiocontrolled aircraft and paper planes joginder singh is using a batteryoperated aircraft to coach a