New batch of students motivated for a science career

Jamshedpur : A group of 63 students of Std. VIII to X from Little Heart School,Sundernagar accompanied by five teachers, Pooja Santra, H.M.Hembram and B.K. Panigrahi, Amit Agrawal and Uma Maheshwar visited CSIR-NML, Jamshedpur to get an exposure to a modern laboratory working environment.

The visiting teachers and students interacted with the scientists and research fellows. The students and teachers were thrilled to see the different experimental set-ups and availability of sophisticated equipments ,some of which they knew through books only.

Therefore it was a memorable moments for them.The programme was scheduled for six and half hours, which comprised of an overview of Indian Science and Technology, Documentary film show on CSIR / NML, visit to NML Museum / Archive and selective units of the laboratory.

Dr. N.G.Goswami, Chief Scientist and coordinator while briefing about the programme highlighted on several issues relating to our society ,namely- science education, preservation of traditional knowledge, employment generation, health, hygiene, sanitation, drinking water and many more. He also elaborated on the Scope of Science Learning gave an overview of Indian Science & Technology. Several questions raised by the participants were also addressed to their satisfactions.

The visiting students and teachers were taken around the laboratory by Sr Scientist Dr P N Mishra. They were taken to the the Asia�s second largest creep testing laboratory .

They were explained by the concern scientists how organizations like Indian Railways, Thermal Power Plant, Petroleum Refineries and many more derives benefits from the Laboratory.

They have shown a number of new products developed, their applications and about beneficiaries.

The students expressed their feelings, asked number of questions, and got clarified them with the Scientists- Dr K K Sahu, Dr M K Jha, Dr A K Mahanty, Dr P K Roy, Dr S K Sahu and others.

“I came to know about many new aspects of science and technology which I barely knew earlier”, said Rohit Mahato a student of Std. IX after the laboratory visit.

Subroto Bhuniya, Visal Hansda, Ms Saloni Singh and Ms Rituparna Bose said�,How to maintain a Chemical lab so clean,we never knew earlier. It is very much impressive. We will try to keep our school lab also clean�.
Archana Priya Deogan said, “I came to know about new things here like recovery of metals like Gold,Copper, from the E-Waste of mobile phone, computer etc.�

Suraj Sawaiyan, a student of Std. IX said, “The visit to the laboratory helped me to select career in science� . Another Std. IX student, Babloo Mardi said, “We are having gain knowledge from the hard working scientists of NML.
Most of the students said that the interaction was very informative and brought a lot of motivation and enhanced their knowledge and idea.

Teachers and many students requested for their next visit to the lab for a deeper knowledge. At the end of the programme, Uma Maheshwar, Academic Coordinator of the visiting school expressed his thanks to the unique effort of CSIR-NML in India to inculcate interest towards science and technology among students as well as teachers.