A year after introducing Science Outreach lecture series for school students in a bid to develop interest in them on science and research, NCL is now planning to take it further to schools for underprivileged students of Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC)’s Vidya Niketan Schools.

“The lectures meant for students from class VIII, IX and X feature the practical applications of scientific concepts. They also include live demonstrations and experiments as part of the lecture,” said Dr. Guruswamy Kumaraswamy, coordinator of NCL science outreach lecture series. He added that the motivation behind the programme is to attract the brightest talent from the next generation towards career in science and technology and to grab them at the time when they will be making a decision on whether to stay in the science stream.

In the last year, the response for this programme was overwhelming. “Our capacity of 80 students was running in full capacity,” said Kumaraswamy. Students attending these lectures are well informed and inquisitive. They also respond well to the problem solving and interactive sessions that are held after the talk. “Considering the response, we are now planning to extend this lecture series to PMC Vidya Niketan schools. We are in talks with some non-profit educational ventures to take the lectures to these students,” he added. The idea will be to translate these lectures that are mainly in English in either Hindi or Marathi for the PMC school students.