Tamil Nadu - Others

Food for thought at State-level science fair

Deepa H Ramakrishnan

Students can walk into the exhibition from 9 a.m. to 4.30 p.m.

INTERESTING PRESENTATIONS: A student explains the nuances of integrated farming to visitors at the State-level science exhibition held in Pondicherry. — Photo: T. Singaravelou

PONDICHERRY: For the past three days the crème de crème of Pondicherry's brains came together at the State-level science exhibition for schoolchildren, which is being held at the Government Girls Higher Secondary School, Kathirgamam.

"We were playing with pieces of hard board that were lying around and found that we couldn't bend or break a piece of corrugated hard board though we could tear a flat piece easily. So, we asked our teachers why this was so and they explained that any material folded in such a way could hold more weight and are stronger than others. We could then see why corrugated sheets were used for roofs, bridges made with V-shaped spans and even why trees had V-shaped branches," said Ilamurugan and Selvakumar, students of standard V of Government Primary School, Pillaiyarkuppam. Though they come from a rural area and had no experience when it came to explaining ideas to outsiders, they exuded a lot of confidence and were able to give a demonstration of how a folded sheet of thick paper was able to hold the weight of a brick whereas a plain sheet was unable to hold the weight of a few coins.

Walking on a bit one could find stalls that explained tsunami warning systems and even a way to break the force of the tsunami when the waves hit the coast. Gopinath and Ganapathy of GHS Thattanchavady had built the tsunami warning system. They also spared a thought for the visually impaired and hearing impaired. "It makes a sound and also has a burning light," they said.

Chandrasekar of GMS Keezh Agraharam had built an easy-to-make improvised telescope. "All you need is a long piece of PVC pipe, a lens for an eye piece, a concave lens and a convex lens. The cost comes up to Rs.150," he said. S. Ilango, who guided the boy in making the telescope, said that the Education Secretary, B.V. Selvaraj, suggested that the telescope be made and supplied to all schools under the Sarva Siksha Abiyan. GMS Veeraveli student P. Andoniammal showed how red, green and blue could be mixed to get white and other colours.

The exhibition, which has 220 stalls and will close by Tuesday afternoon, has children of government and private schools at the primary, middle, high and higher secondary school levels presenting lively experiments. "We had school-level science exhibitions in all the schools and chose the best experiments to exhibit them here. Normally, two or three children from a school are chosen to represent the school, but this time Mr. Selvaraj said that more children must be given the opportunity," said Jeevanandam Government Higher Secondary School principal Parthasarathy, who is the coordinator of the exhibition.

A dinosaur, giraffe and butterfly welcome all who enter the cave the leads to the stalls put up at the exhibition.

According to the Joint Director of School Education, A. Ramadas, the Southern India Science Fair 2006 will also be held at the same venue from January 27 to January 31. Students can walk into the exhibition from 9 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. The public can visit the exhibition from 4.30 p.m. to 6 p.m.

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