IIT Gandhinagar celebrates ‘National Science Day’, Organises scientific demonstration for students

NEW DELHI: Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN) celebrated ‘National Science Day’ on its campus today by organising an ‘Open Day’ with several exciting and hands-on activities and scientific demonstrations for school and college students.

To explore, experience, and enjoy Science and its wonders, around 1,000 school students from 15 schools and 200 college students from six higher education institutions and universities from Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, and nearby districts visited the IITGN campus.

With support from the Royal Society of Chemistry, IITGN arranged several activities and demonstrations with an aim to popularise STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) learning and inspire students to pursue careers in various fields of STEM.

The demonstrations by IITGN’s undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD students explained different scientific concepts through activities such as viewing the black spot in the Sun through the telescope, characteristics of dry ice, ice-cream making through liquid nitrogen, robotics, understanding climate change, production of oxygen, disappearing styrofoam, the explosion of ping pong balls using liquid nitrogen, electromagnetism, wire loop game, peeking inside the diaper to understand the concept of hydrogel among others.

Explaining the objective behind the celebration, Professor Sivapriya Kirubakaran, Dean of student affairs, said, “Events like this prove to be a valuable experience for students and provide them with inspiration and motivation to continue pursuing their interests in Science. National Science Day is a great occasion to encourage our young generation of students to experience the wonders of Science. They could see the innovative and exciting work that our students have been working on throughout the year, and this will provide them a stimulus to pursue STEM subjects creatively.”

Mr Mahesh Tripathi, Physics teacher, Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, said, “Every experiment being demonstrated here was very stimulating for students and they are very happy to see them. It can ignite students’ curiosity and motivate them to explore more.”

The event concluded with a lecture on the topic “Development and Innovations in Pharmaceutical Industry” by Dr Rajamannar Thennati, Executive Vice President and Advisor to MD and Head of High-impact Innovations and Sustainable Solutions, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.

Addressing the students and explaining the significance of innovation during different processes of Chemistry and drug discovery, Dr Rajamannar said, “In any field, the breadth and depth of knowledge are very important to advance your work. In the field of life sciences, you need to think beyond your perception, have imagination, and try doing things differently, even if it sounds like a stupid idea in the beginning because it will lead you to success. Today India is regarded as the “Pharmacy of the World”, and India’s medicines are preferred worldwide. Our young generation should think of pursuing life sciences outside merely job prospects and develop the passion for making more things happen in India.”