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Report of the visit to Indian Institute of Science Education and Research to participate in a series of events including a seminar, quiz and lab visit as a part of National Science day celebrations on 26-02-2011. Two of our students from Grade IX IGCSE, Vineet John and Sidharth Ranjith Menon have participated in an inter-institution quiz programme conducted by IISER (Indian Institute of Science Education & Research), located at Govt. Engineering College, Chavadimukku, and Trivandrum ON 26-02-2011. The programmed was initiated by an introductory speech by the Director, IISER, and Dr.E.D.Jemmis. It was an awareness campaign to inspire the young participants to aspire science as a career. The speech was about the unrealistic proportion of students choosing IT and Science as a career. We are tuned to think that for a science student, immediate chance of getting a job is not very easy. This has changed. During the last 10 years, there has been tremendous change in the development of science in India .There are 8 new IITs, 5 new IIScs,and much more to come in the near future. The introductory speech was followed by a very informative lecture on the History of development of science by, Professor & Director, Dr.Kankan Bhattacharya, Indian Association of Cultivation of Science (IACS, Calcutta). According to him, taking science as a career by those who have a real passion for science only will lead to successful development .The simple equation is “Knowledge + Manpower = progress “ He was trying to unfold the history of development of science & technology in India. It begins with the green revolution in 1965….followed by White revolution in 1975……later in 1980, there is progress in Medical science with the development of Pharmaceutical chemistry-(drugs are available at a very cheap rate in India) …..Followed by development in Poultry, Diamond industry, Textiles, Software, and finally Automobile industry, we have Nano, Indica and Indigo ‘made in India’ cars. He gave a detailed account of the life and discovery of Nobel Prize winners including Dr.Irene, daughter of Madam Curie, who won Nobel Prize in 1935 for her work on artificial radioactivity. He foresees Asia as the Centre of Knowledge by 2020.Indian creativity and Japanese skill is the best combination for this development in Asia. He gave an elaborate power point presentation of all eminent Scientist and Nobel Prize winners. Some of them include, Dr.C.V.Raman, the first Asian to win Nobel Prize, in 1930, who dedicated his Nobel Prize to all freedom fighters of India .H.Khorana (1922) ,G.N.Ramavhandran, a famous crystallographer ,P.C.Ray, father of modern chemistry studied the compound Mercurous nitrite (1896) and in 1901 started Bengal Chemical Society ,J.C.Bose – started microwave communication (1895), Dr.Ramanujam (1911) Bernoulli’s numbers- who failed in all subjects during his studies except mathematics ,Asutosh, S.S.Bhatnagar (1894-1955) ,J.C.Ghosh ,J.D.Tata- funded TIFR Mumbai, NCL, pune, NMI, Jamshetpur ,Homi.J.Baba- father of Atomic energy ,Vikram sarabhai- father of Space research , A.H.Zewalare are some of them . His speech was really interesting and he concluded his speech by quoting few lines of Dr.C.V.Raman. Raman “the intellectual beauty is the highest form of beauty”. NMR Raman spectrometer The speech was followed by a lab visit. This institute is well versed with all modern equipment .We are planning a visit to their Spectroscopy lab in the last week of March 2011. Our students of AS and A2 levels will be benefited by this. About his work & research He did a comparative study of CW- LASER and PULSED LASER. Pulsed laser can be used to study chemical reactions in a very short period. His mission is to isolate a single molecule with the help of Co focal Microscopy. . Prepared by Ms.Sajina Adam Department of Chemistry Trivandrum International School
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