The first edition of NCBS Science Day took place on Saturday, 12th November 2016. Over 600 kids from schools all around the state of Karnataka came to the campus and learnt about how science can be applied in every-day life. The event was a beautiful depiction of how people from all walks of life can convene to celebrate one passion; in this case, science. Several labs from NCBS and inStem provided experiments to demonstrate the uses of science in everyday life.
The event happened over two different sessions, the first from 9am to 1pm and the second from 1pm to 5pm.The faculty and their students seemed to embrace the occasion. Sanjay Sane said "Science Day is important because it allows learning both ways. It allows the public to learn about the science we do here and it helps us scientists to learn how to communicate better."SwarnaMathre, of Raghu Padinjat's lab said "It is important for us to reach out and explain our science to the common man. It is especially important for us to reach out to kids because they are the ones who will help us build a better future."
Amongst all of the scientific terminology used in the exhibits, there was still time for some light-heartedness and fun. The 'Musical Brain' exhibit by UpinderBhalla's lab gave people the chance to see the reasoning behind their association of songs to various things while also allowing them to play these songs using neurons.
Also standing out were exhibits from Gaiti Hasan and VijayRaghavan's labs. They used Drosophila to show how the brain turns on and off, with the presentation culminating with a Drosophila playing a game of football.
Other standouts included Sandeep Krishna's lab, who used robots to show how bacteria navigate towards food and away from harmful substances, as well as Raghu Padinjat's lab, who showed how fruit flies see, alongside presenting a study of the types of pigments in the eye of a fruit fly.
Science Day was extremely well received, with one student saying "It was very interesting to see how we can apply science in our daily lives. Some of the applications of science which I have seen today are really impressive." By the responses received, NCBS Science Day was a roaring success and NCBS hopes to repeat it next year.
The author, Aditya Padinjat is a student of Year 8 and enjoys writing about current affairs and fiction. He visited NCBS Science day.
Photo Credits: www.clickstoremember.com and Dr Raghu Padinjat lab.
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