The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Vehicle of scientific thoughts gets moving in Chennai

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Thursday, Jun 05, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Vehicle of scientific thoughts gets moving in Chennai

Staff Reporter

Mobile science van launched for upper primary school students

— Photo: S. Thanthoni

LOOKING AT THE DEMONSTRATION: School Education Minister Thangam Thennarasu and State Project Director, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, M.P. Vijayakumar, at the mobile laboratory in Egmore on Wednesday.

CHENNAI: Till now, they learnt the concepts in their classrooms, saw a few images in their textbooks and tried to memorise the lessons. But now, students in the upper primary sections of the government and aided schools will have an opportunity to see models and do experiments that would help them understand the concepts learnt in the classroom.

School Education Minister Thangam Thennarasu launched a ‘mobile science van,’ an initiative of the State’s Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) wing, here on Wednesday. The van has experiments that are aimed at enhancing the students’ classroom learning with practical inputs.

“We have had such vans before. But now, we have added more inputs to the content to make it interesting to the student,” Mr. Thennarasu said. The van essentially has four big boxes covering select concepts in Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Social Science. These boxes could be wheeled in and out of the van, as a ramp has been provided at the rear of the vehicle.

“All our high schools and higher secondary schools have full-fledged laboratories for students to perform experiments. We thought we could give that opportunity to students of classes six, seven and eight as well,” the Minister added.

The SSA wing has roped in a team of teachers from The School, Chennai, and scientists from noted organisations. Besides training the Block Resource Teachers (BRTs), these consultants did extensive research on how experiments could be linked to the syllabus. They studied the textbooks, picked out important concepts and suggested relevant experiments to facilitate better understanding.

R. Nityananda, Centre director of the Pune-based National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, one of the consultants, said they had consciously included Social Science in the realm of science, as several concepts learnt in social science were to do with science itself.

“We also ensured active teacher involvement. As researchers, we may not be aware of the challenges teachers are likely to encounter,” he said.

Sumitra Gautama, outreach coordinator, of The School said the receptivity and enthusiasm of the BRTs were amazing.

The van also has a television and projector to facilitate audio-visual presentations. The whole unit cost about Rs.4.5 lakh. Launched in Chennai, similar vans will soon be sent to 17 districts across the State as part of the first phase and later be extended to the remaining districts.

BRTs have collected relevant material from various government organisations and museums to give children an authentic representation a particular place or concept.

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