Mysuru: A group of like-minded teachers from government schools and colleges banded together five years ago, and embarked on a mission single-mindedly – the cultivation of scientific spirit school and college students, and the public. Determined to weed out superstitious practices and beliefs in society, these teachers founded the
Mysuru Science Foundation, which has organised 60 lectures on a broad range of scientific topics.
Since its inception, the foundation has been organising ‘Monthly Science Talks’ every second Saturday – the teachers pool their money for these lectures, which are conducted without any government support.
The beginnings of the foundation lay in the teachers’ personal experiences in the message and objective of science being lost in a morass of competition and blind beliefs prevalent in the society. The foundation’s president C Krishnegowda, a physics lecturer at the Government PU College in Pandavapura, Mandya, lamented the deterioration of scientific knowledge in the world. “Children are studying science in schools and colleges with the sole aim of scoring good marks, and are not too keen to understand the many concepts. Our society is still naïve and superstitious. While discussing what could be done to redress this, the nine of us – science and mathematics teachers all – came up with the idea of the foundation, and organising special lectures from resource individuals to spread scientific knowledge,” Krishnegowda told TOI.
While the lecturers mostly pool in money to finance these lectures, there are occasions when others sponsor them.
The foundation’s secretary GB Santosh Kumar, a mathematics teacher, said, “Promotion of science is at the core of what we do. We conduct a monthly talk every second Saturday of the month at Maneangala in Kalamandir, in addition to which we have interaction programmes with scientists every third Sunday of the month through which children and public learn about research going on at various research institutes across the country. Also, we hold a sky-watching programme to understand constellations every month.”
The interactive session with the scientists follows a template, Kumar said. “An hour-long lecture is followed by a question-and-answer session that again lasts an hour. Students can also know about possible career prospects in scientific research,” he added.
Reiterating that the primary objective of the foundation was the eradication of blind beliefs in the society, Kumar said, “People won’t be taken for a ride if they possess scientific knowledge.”
Kumar also bemoaned the trend among science students to resort to rote-learning. “Students are only worried about marks, and unfortunately, our education system too is marks-oriented as well. With no practical approach, students are unable to understand these concepts in depth. Though they study biology, they are unable to identify the species of plant or insects on seeing them,” he said.
The four-day cosmos workshop organised by the foundation was a huge draw among the students and parents, he said. “It is held during the summer, and it has become a huge hit. During the workshop, students build telescopes, which provide them hands-on experience. Students take these telescopes home, much to their parents’ delight, and they have taken to star gazing as well,” he said.
Chief scientist of CSRTI, Mysuru, T Thippeswamy is the foundation’s chief patron, MR Nandan, a former philosophy professor is its honorary president.
