Southern States - Karnataka-Bangalore   

A blast-off to new horizons of learning

By Our Special Correspondent

BANGALORE DEC. 9. An excited group of schoolchildren took an instant trip to outer space, hunted for treasure in the Amazonian rain forests Indiana Jones style, and had a look at a science museum in the U.S. while returning.

All this and more happened on Tuesday afternoon at the Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium in the city. "TryScience", the interactive kiosk sponsored by IBM India to make learning science fun for children was launched by U.R. Rao, eminent scientist and former Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation. The Bangalore Association for Science Education (BASE) is associated with the project.

The kiosk will take children through IBM's website, www.TryScience.org, a global online science and technology initiative for children. Web cameras take users to various science centres and museums.

The children present at the launch tried out the kiosk to see for themselves how to avoid lightning during a thundershower, and also visited the Space Centre in Houston.

They also went on an expedition in the jungles, using their geometrical ability to avoid being snapped by alligators in a swamp.

Prof. Rao recalled his association with IBM as a student in the U.S. in the Sixties when computers donated by the company were shared by a number of universities. Today, the Internet had reached more people in five years than the radio or the TV did in 20 to 25 years, he said.

Stressing the need for making science and technology more interactive, Prof. Rao felt that "mass education" in the form of 125 engineering colleges and 3.5 lakh engineering graduates passing out every year in the State had led to deterioration of standards, besides creating too many under or unemployed engineers. "Education is no longer a `dhan' but `dhun' for many self-financing institutions," he remarked.

The Managing Director of IBM India, Abraham Thomas, said the kiosk at the planetarium would be the first among those to come up in other cities.

Visveshwara of BASE said the planetarium had programmes to attract children.

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