Exhibition helps demystify science for students

mumbai: there’s nothing that ram dreads more than memorising equations from his std ix physics textbook. surprisingly though, he seems quite amenable to playing physics teacher as he performs an experiment on air pressure and explains its mechanics to a rapt audience of a dozen students. “if this is science, even i can do it,’’ he gleefully remarks.ram, along with thousands of other students, was participating in the national science day which was celebrated on february 28 in dozens of schools, colleges and research institutes around the city. it was on this day in 1928 that c.v. raman is said to have discovered the ‘raman effect’, which fetched him the nobel prize in physics. demystifying science for students and the larger public was big on the agenda of the national science day organisers who were spread between the homi bhabha centre for science education, indian women science association, nehru science centre, bhabha atomic research centre and several colleges. “too often, we treat the processes of science and technology as magic. for instance, we use computers as black boxes; we punch keys to get results. if things go wrong, we call the engineers, without ever trying to understand ourselves the logic behind how the machine works,’’ says dr m. vahia, director of the nehru planetarium and a professor at the tata institute of fundamental research, who hopes that the experiments and talks will pique the students’ curiosity and have them poking around their surroundings. teachers and scientists were also keen to change the elitist image of science as they worked to communicate their excitement to students in municipal and vernacular-medium schools, who do not always have easy access to scientists, science magazines or science toys. “we need to intensify our efforts to provide exposure to first-generation learners,’’ stressed professor s. lele of udct, who believes that income and class should not serve as barriers to learning science and the scientific temper. the emphasis on rationality and logic strikes a discordant chord with 15-year-old sonam, whose grandparents are in ahmedabad and who has just seen the tv news about the riots. pensively fingering a makeshift compass that she has pieced together with a sewing needle, cork, magnet, and a cup of water, she remarks, “all this talk about rationality on the one hand, while we burn in the name of faith on the other hand.’’ cheering up, she points to her model and adds, “at least i understand how and why this happens.’’