Media Release 

Mangaluru, Dec 19: 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 hands-on training sessions at four government high schools. The list of Schools is as follows:

1. Kinnikambla Government High School
2. Government Girls High School, Car Street
3. Gurupura Government High School
4. Government High School, Moodushedde

The main goal of these sessions 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.

These sessions were delivered by Dr Sheryl Colaco, professor in the department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering along with student volunteers. 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’s. 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.

The team intends to hold training sessions in ten rural government schools so that students can actively participate in the assembly and experimentation. The funds are utilized to create a demonstration kit containing all of the materials needed to conduct the experiments.

St Joseph Engineering College, Vamanjoor, Mangaluru. distribute these kits to each school. They are taught how to put the components together through oral instructions and video demonstrations. With the training session in these 4 high schools, the team from SJEC was able to cover 10 government high schools in the Dakshina Kannada district. The efforts of the team were highly appreciated by all beneficiaries and went a long way in making the school children learn innovatively.