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Outreach

Science Popularization

Science Popularization and Career Guidance In Vernacular Languages to School Students

  • An Outreach Initiative by IIT Madras that offers these activities for free
  • Popular Science Content is made available to school students in vernacular languages
  • Motivate students on careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics)
  • Providing Career Guidance to students in Vernacular languages
  • Call for registrations from schools and students to participate and benefit

     

    Schools who are interested in attending these sessions and participating in the initiatives can register in the following page.

    Registration Link :Click Here

    Students who are interested in taking career guidance assessments, please click the link below and take the assessment: https://www.mychoicemyfuture.com/bodhbridge

    IIT Madras Professor Srinivasa Chakarvarthy is successfully running an outreach initiative that helps school students with interesting content in popular science and career guidance in vernacular languages. All these activities are offered at free of cost to the school students. Popular science serves as a bridge, translating complex scientific concepts into a language that makes it more accessible to a broader audience. It allows individuals without a scientific background to engage with and appreciate the beauty and importance of scientific discoveries.

    In the Western world, there is a continuous tradition of Science popularization that aims at bringing scientific understanding to the doorstep of the common man. In India, such a tradition is somewhat broken, and in Indian languages it is negligible. It was keeping this in mind that nearly 15 years ago, Professor Chakravarthy began to write popular science books in Telugu mainly targeting high school children. Over the years, this effort resulted in close to 80 titles covering a wide variety of topics including science, science function, education and history.

    Chakravarthy translated a series of around 30 short popular science books by Isaac Asimov- How did we find out? series. Biographies of Newton, Einstein, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Jagadish Chandra Bose and Galileo were written. Charles Darwins autobiography was translated. Science histories give a deep insight into the development of scientific ideas. Among science histories, the professor has translated into Telugu the books written by Asimov on the history of Biology and Chemistry are also there. He has written a book on the history of Astronomy, which covers the story from the Astronomy of the ancient world to the Newtonian revolution. Another book on the history of rocketry begins with the early disastrous attempts of Daedalus and Icarus to contemporary achievements including Mangalyaan and Chandrayaan, and more futuristic visions of interstellar travel. Overall, it is a writing effort comprising over 75 books spanning about 6,000 pages. A similar science writing effort in Tamil was coordinated by Dr Pragathi, an alumnus of IIT Madras, and currently a faculty at IIT Kanpur, which resulted in translation 24 books from the How did we find out? series by Asimov.

    With the financial support from IIT Madras and CSR partners, they are able to publish and distribute free popular science books to rural and government schools in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu. Over the three years this effort had been expanded to Hindi-speaking states as well.

    How to make learning more fun?

    Science education in India traditionally emphasized rote learning and cramming for examinations. Students would often be asked to learn by heart theories, theorems, laws, and formulae with little feel for how all that scientific knowledge comes into play in the real world. To address the issues, we visit schools to make learning more fun. As part of the initiative, experts visit the schools to deliver the sessions. As part of the session, the experts engage the students to make them understand how and why understanding science and applying science in real life is important as part of learning. During the session, a few experiments are demonstrated to make the session more engaging and active. Different topics of science are discussed with the students to motivate students towards STEM education. Students are given the opportunity to ask questions. Engaging students through hands-on experiments and discussions about the real-world applications of scientific concepts can significantly enhance their understanding and interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) subjects. Prof. Chakravarthy has been taking sessions for the students and teachers on some interesting topics of science.

    This is an excellent initiative to awaken the genius in students through scientific knowledge. The service you are providing to the students makes every student develop reasoning faculty and scientific thinking. Reading science fiction makes a child experience thrill and it develops imagination and higher order thinking. Mr. J Chandra Sekhar Gowd, Head Master, Zilla Parishad High School, Siddarampuram village in Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh

    The job market is continually evolving with the advancement of technology and globalization. The global economy offers a wide range of career options across various sectors and industries. India's national goals often emphasize the importance of skilled manpower in various sectors. Career guidance aligns with these goals by helping students choose careers that contribute to the nation's development and growth. Students in India go through a lot of peer pressure and emotional pressure when it comes to choosing a career. Every student is unique, with distinct strengths, interests, aspirations and it is not fair to fit everyone into 2 or 3 limited domains. Career guidance helps in creating individualized career plans, considering a student's academic performance, skills, personality, and future goals. Students often face pressure from parents or peers to pursue certain careers.

    As part of this initiative, the school students go through a free career guidance assessment called My Choice My Future (MCMF - https://www.mychoicemyfuture.com). MCMF tool has been developed by the faculty and alumni of IIT Madras in partnership with BodhBridge. MCMF (My Choice My Future) tool is a simple career guidance assessment that provides detailed insights. This online career guidance solution helps school students identify the right career paths based on their strengths. This tool is currently available in 7 Indian languages namely; Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali and Marathi. Career guidance sessions are conducted to the students on the top career with a special emphasis on STEM careers.

    We are very happy to say that we were able to reach 9,193 rural and government schools and we were able to distribute 3,20,702 books to the students. Currently we are able to reach out to Tamilnadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh. I take this opportunity to thank IIT Madras, IIT Madras alumni and all the donors who have been instrumental in supporting this cause. We are also happy and delighted to see hundreds of letters and emails from the students and teachers who are actively reading our books and participating in our initiatives. The need for these activities is so high for our school students in India and what we are doing is just a beginning. Prof. Srinivas Chakravarthy, Department of Biotechnology, IIT Madras.

    Schools who are interested in attending these sessions and participating in the initiatives can register in the following page.

    Registration Link :Click Here

    Students who are interested in taking career guidance assessments, please click the link below and take the assessment: https://www.mychoicemyfuture.com/bodhbridge

    (An initiative by Prof. V. Srinivasa Chakravarthy)

    ###############################################################################################################

    • Media:

    Have written a regular weekly science column in Andhra Bhoomi (Telugu daily) for about a
    year (in 2011).


    Blog:

    A science blog in Telugu: (http://scienceintelugu.blogspot.in)
    ‐ Articles on a wide range of science topics.
    ‐ over 570 posts; 208 readers; 187 followers; over 1 lakh hits.


    Books

    Original books:

      1. మూడడుగుల్లో విశ్వం (A book on how scientists measure very large distances in the
        universe)
      2. భూమి గుండ్రంగా ఉంది – హాస్య భరిత సైన్స్ నాటిక
      3. భూమి తరువాత ఎక్కడ? (A book on exploration and colonization of Mars)
      4. అంకెల మాంత్రికుడు శ్రీనివాస రామానుజన్ - ఇతర గణిత గాధలు (a series of historical anecdotes on mathematics)

    Translations:

    1. “Learning all the time” by John Holt. నేర్చుకోవడం పిల్లల నైజం
    2. “How children learn” by John Holt పిల్లలు నేర్చుకునే విధానము - 4 volumes
    3. “A chemical history of candle” by Michael Faraday కొవ్వొత్తి రసాయన చరిత్ర
    4. “The Story of Physics” by T. Padmanabhan (cartoon book on history of physics) భౌతిక శాస్త్రం ఎలా మారింది?
    5. Story of Astronomy by Uday Patil. బొమ్మలలో ఖగోళ శాస్త్రం
    6. Mr. Tompkins in Wonderland by George Gamow. సుబ్బారావు – సాపేక్ష లోకం.
    7. Jupiter Five (short story) by Arthur C. Clarke. బృహస్పతి పంచమం.
    8. Solar Energy, by Arvind Gupta. సౌరశక్తి కథ
    9. Heat and temperature by Isaac Asimov, ఉష్ణం – ఉష్ణోగ్రత
    10. రెమ్మలు రమ్మన్నాయి– జగదీశ్ చంద్రబోస్ చరిత్ర (Life of Jagadish Chandra Bose)


    Isaac Asimov's "Science Fact" Masterpieces :
    “How did we find out” series:

      1. THE EARTH IS ROUND,భూమి గుండ్రంగా ఉంది
      2. ANTARCTICA, అంటార్కిటికా
      3. LIFE IN DEEP SEA, సముద్రపు లోతుల్లో సజీవ ప్రపంచం
      4. EARTHQUAKES, భూకంపాలు
      5. GERMS, సూక్ష్మక్రిములు
      6. OIL, చమురు
      7. OUTER SPACE, రోదసి
      8. SOLAR POWER, సౌరశక్తి
      9. ATMOSPHERE, వాతావరణం
      10. PHOTOSYNTHESIS కిరణజన్య సంయోగ క్రియ
      11. OUR HUMAN ROOTS, మన మానవ మూలాలు
      12. DINOSAURS, డైనోసార్లు
      13. BEGINNING OF LIFE, జీవం పుట్టుక
      14. VITAMINS, విటమిన్లు
      15. COMETS తోకచుక్క
      16. NEPTUNE నెప్ట్యూన్
      17. PLUTO ప్లూటో
      18. BLACK HOLES నల్లబిలాలు
      19. BRAIN మెదడు
      20. DNA డీ.ఎన్. ఏ
      21. BLOOD రక్తం
      22. GENES జన్యువులు
      23. ROBOTS రోబోలు
      24. COAL బొగ్గు
      25. SUPERCONDUCTIVITY అతిహకత
      26. VOLCANOES అగ్నిపర్వతాలు
      27. LASERS లేసర్లు

     

    Contributions from other members

    1.   How we found out that THE EARTH IS ROUND – Translated by Mr. Rangarajan into Tamil.

    2.    How we found out about OUR BRAIN – Translated by Mrs. B. Lakshmi Prabha into Tamil

    3.    How we found out about ELECTRICITY - Translated by Mr. Rangarajan into Tamil.

    4.    How we found out about the ORIGINS OF LIFE – Translated by Mr. Rangasamy  into Tamil

    5.   How we found out about OUR UNIVERSE – Translated by Mrs. B. Lakshmi Prabha into Tamil

    6.  How we found out about OUR UNIVERSE in Bengali - Translated by Mrs. Ratna GhoshDastidar

     

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