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Creating national assets
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As a pilot study, M.Sc. and M.Phil. Zoology students of the Yadava College were asked to work on a fortnight's project on environment biology in and around the college campus.
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GONE ARE the days when assignments and seminars were an integral part of college curriculum and earmarked for internal assessment. The aim then was to make students read more books other than the prescribed textbooks and classroom learning so that the horizon of their knowledge expanded. But now, things are changing. With the entry of more stereotyped textbooks and quick access to information through internet writing, an assignment or preparing for a seminar is generally considered a boring affair.
In fact, assignments and seminars have lost their charm and students also become disinterested when loaded with such an exercise. The educational institutions are, therefore reworking their strategies to attract students and improve the quality of higher education. Taking the lead perhaps is the Yadava College here.
"To make learning more interesting and challenging for the students we encourage our students to take up short-term projects. Generally, such projects would be assigned only during M. Phil or Ph.D. When students get acquainted with project work early, it becomes easy for them while pursuing higher studies," avers A. Padmanaban, Professor of Zoology.
As a pilot study, M.Sc. and M.Phil. Zoology students were asked to work on a fortnight's project on environment biology in and around the college campus only. Once through, they were encouraged to present their findings through demonstration and lecture. This shot up the confidence level of most students.
"Talking about rainwater harvesting and its significance is in vogue these days. But nobody bothers about grey water harvesting which is equally important for recharging the ground water. Poor grey water harvesting has resulted in depletion of ground water table to alarming levels in some places near Tiruppalai Village," point out A. Dhanalakshmi and N. Saraswathi, final year M.Sc. Zoology students.
They were introduced to simple equipment and experiments and took to it happily and with a challenge. Many students fabricated equipment like the Sechi disk, which is used to measure the turbidity of water through ground reflected solar radiation.
"The equipment is known to all. But designing the disk was an unique experience for us," share G. Sathya and P.Rathi.
Some students designed aquarium tanks with ornamental fish and gathered some basic but often ignored information about them. Some identified medicinal plants in the college and introduced them to their colleagues.
"We prepared a herbarium chart on the basis of some rare herbal plants that we collected from our college campus only. Some of them are known by their popular names but we identified the families of the herbs. We have been in the college for more than five years but never realised that the campus was blooming with plants of medicinal value. This project gave us the opportunity to discover," opine Vijaya Shanthi and A. Maniammai Periyar.
Other projects done by the students included data analysis of automobile emission testing centres, rock types in Madurai region, soil texture and its porosity, insect and pests of agro ecosystem.
"It worked wonders with our students. Their skills of comprehension and compilation facts have tremendously improved ever since," says G. Thiruvasagam, Principal of the college, with much pride.
Execution of such work has helped developed skills like innovative and logical thinking, problem solving ability and perseverance. If such pursuits are continued with sincerity and motivation, then perhaps the day is not far indeed when India will become a superpower realising the dream of President A.P.J.Abdul Kalam.
A potent student force endowed with skilful scientific temper is undoubtedly an asset for any nation.
T. SARAVANAN
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Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
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Visakhapatnam
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