IIT Gandhinagar to start ‘Sparkle Series’ for 10,000 Vigyan Jyoti girl students of 200 JNVs

NEW DELHI: Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Gandhinagar’s Centre for Creative Learning (CCL), IBM India and the American India Foundation (AIF) have joined hands to start ‘Sparkle Series’, an online interactive education programme for over 10,000 Vigyan Jyoti girl scholars of class 11 from 200 Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas (JNVs) across the country in a focused effort to get young higher secondary girl students from remotest parts of the country excited about Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

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Commencing from January 22, the ‘Sparkle Series’ will be live-streamed every Saturday from 3 to 4:30 pm on CCL’s YouTube channel.

“Aligned with the objectives of the Vigyan Jyoti scheme of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India…‘Sparkle Series’ intends to get the young girls excited about STEM by unlocking hidden mysteries, beauty, and magic of these subjects from everyday life,” an official statement from IIT Gandhinagar said.

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STEM for women

The interactive sessions in this series will be based on Science and Mathematics curriculum topics, but they will consist of various activities using simple materials like paper, vegetables, playing cards, musical instruments, different types of whistles, bicycles etc.

Elaborating about objectives of this series, Manish Jain, Head of CCL, IITGN, said, “Traditionally a career in STEM is not something that many women pursue and as a result as a society we lose out on the contributions from some of our brightest minds. We are very excited to collaborate with JNV, AIF and IBM to get school girls hooked to Science and Math primarily by making STEM subjects engaging and inspiring.”

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“The focus will be on showcasing how Math, Science are related to our life. In this series, we will explore the inherent beauty of Mathematics and Science curriculum topics through engaging and interesting activities, hands-on projects, historical stories, and open-ended questions,” he said.