Oct 1 : To spark interest in science among the High School students, the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering of St Joseph Engineering College (SJEC), Mangaluru, conducted a hands-on training session at Government High School (GHS), Attavar, Mangaluru, on 23 September 2021.
The main goal of this session was to raise awareness about how to use and assemble low-cost locally available materials to create experiments with light rays, lenses, and mirrors in addition to helping the students grasp the concepts of Optics and Photonics that are taught in Science classes at High Schools.
This session was delivered by Dr Sheryl Colaco, Professor in the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering along with Mr Aaron Pinto and Mr Steevan D’Souza, Electrical Engineering students from the Class of 2021. 30 students of Class 9 & 10 at GHS, Attavar enthusiastically took part in this programme.
During the workshop, the participants learned the intricacies of putting together the components for the experiments involving Microscope, Infinity mirror, Light Scattering, Kaleidoscope, Reflection Experiment, Solar Applications, Series and Parallel Connection of Batteries.
Experiments listed above usually necessitate the use of specialised scientific equipment and tools. On the other hand, only a few rural Indian Government Schools have well-organized Science labs and scientific equipment. As a result, students in these school’s struggle to grasp scientific concepts. The objective of this workshop was to introduce these low-cost science experiments that can help High School students to better understand the concept of Optics & Photonics.
This programme was supported by the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE-USA). The SPIE Education Outreach Grant-2020 had chosen SJEC as one of the 19 international winners in the world for the science project outreach proposal written by Dr Sheryl Grace Colaco, Professor, Department of Electrical & Electronics Engineering at SJEC.