Inspire Science Internship – Inspiring youth for science
The fourth edition of INSPIRE Internship programme was organised by National Institute of Technology, Srinagar from 21st to 25th November, 2013. The programme was attended by 40 students from our school, who were highly inspired by the programme.
The objective of the programme is to inspire the students to opt for science in their higher education and to communicate to the youth of the country the excitements of creative pursuit of science, attract talent to the study of science at an early age and thus build the required critical human resource pool for strengthening and expanding the Science and Technology system and Research and Development base.
During the programme, technologists and scientists from around India, besides scientists from National Institute of Technology, held various workshops with the students. Some of the noted speakers included Mr Samar Kumar Bagchi, Former director of FIVE museums of Eastern India & recipient of National Award for Science popularization, Dr B N Das, Former Reader in Physics, Vivekananda College, Kolkota.
Mr Samar Kumar Bagchi & Dr B N Das conducted a workshop titled, “To build concepts of Science through activity with ‘no cost’ ‘low cost’ materials”. Speaking on the occasion, Dr B N Das stressed on ‘Learning by Doing’ approach to teaching science, which helps students to get their concepts clear. He said, “The need of providing ‘No Cost’ materials for doing experiments allow the students to learn many basic concepts of Science by easily performing them at their homes or schools. The intention is to ‘play around’ and enjoy science, to ask questions and to explore answers from such ‘playing around’.” The speakers were of the view that adopting this methodology helps teachers to get experience for quantitative measurement with sufficient accuracy to verify certain laws from these experiments.
Session on Night Sky by Dr Seemin Rubab was inspiring. She pointed to the fact that night sky is a fantastic laboratory and teaching learning resource freely available to all of us. She took the case study of Comet ISON to discuss how it can be an exciting opportunity to gear towards involving children on a massive scale in a campaign to track the comet in its progression towards the sun.
Other notable sessions include, ‘The art of Laparoscopy’ by Dr Mushtaq Chalkoo & ‘Nanotechnology: An innovative science to address global issues’ by Dr M A Shah.
