Interventions to promote, propagate & popularise science in schools

Abstract

Efforts have been made in the recent past to promote, propagate and popularise science amidst senior secondary school students at the National level. Innovations, debates, exhibitions, model presentations, developing prototypes are a few that can be listed. Interaction with science teachers and students reveals that scientific interventions in schools have played a major role in the popularisation of science and creating scientific temper in the society. Preliminary analyses have shown that Government programmes have yielded a mixed response to the desired results of developing scientific brains and mindset before leaving the schools. A lot more needs to be done to develop a behavioural change in the society regarding the scientific perspective and to achieve that school students as brand ambassadors can play a crucial role. Also, an ambience needs to be created to evoke scientific curiosity among the mass. Although huge investments have been made in institutions and programmes to promote science, there is still a lot of scope to popularise science at the school level.