Science projects in exhibition captivates young minds

The premises of Saraswati Vidyalaya were filled with young science enthusiasts throughout the weekend. Students from various schools of the city as well from rural areas marked their presence in the three day science exhibition which is underway at the school.

The exhibition was a part of the central government's Department of Science & Technology sponsored Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) awards. The local leg of this national-level competition was organised by the Maharashtra State Board Of Education and Research Pune, State Institute of Science Education and education department of Nagpur Zilla Parishad.

"Thirty-five projects have been selected from the zone to compete at the district level. The judges were eminent people like former principal of C Pand Berar High School Avinash Senad, former professor of IIT, Powai Anant Mahajan and lecturer at Shivaji Science College Ashok Band. They appreciated the amount of efforts that the children had put in," said teacher Ravi Kulkarni, who was coordinating the event.

This is the first year that Maharashtra is taking part in this competition, selecting more than 40,000 students from state-aided schools. Each school was told to identify two students with aptitude for science and provided with Rs 5,000 to be used for buying material and instrument required to make their models. Students from villages like Saoner, Kamptee, Kuhi, Ramtek and Hingna were present in large numbers. There were 468 projects on display from two categories - group A for classes VI, VII and VIII and group B for classes IX and X.

"The best part of the exhibition for me was that most of the models were based on pure sciences and were very intelligently put together. Despite their limited exposure, students from the rural areas also did very well," said principal of Saraswati Vidyalaya S Praburaman.

Pratiksha Kamle, a participant from class VIII said that she learnt a lot over the three days of exhibition. "I belong to a village, so coming here and interacting with students from so many schools was a big thing for me. Their projects also taught me much more than I already know," she said.

For Shubham Patel from Kuhi, though, it was an opportunity to pick up some tricks. "I love worrying people through scientific pranks. There were so many models based on laws of Physics that I can put to use for it in future," he remarked. Equally enthusiastic was Prateek Kalaskar, a student of class VI, who was impressed by the projects the seniors had put up.