They’re from the new school of thought

If you want to see clouds in a bottle, then Science in Action, a science exhibition at Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium, is where you should be heading.

The three-day fair that was inaugurated on Friday saw 30 teams from schools across the city display their most innovative projects.
“We gave schools in the city a month’s advance to send us their concepts and from 150 projects, we selected 30. We chose the models based on the simplicity of the execution and the clarity of the concept,” planetarium director Dr B S Shylaja said.
Over 6,000 students from the city are expected to attend the exhibition in the first day, added the director.

The director was of the view that the organisers are hoping for an interaction among the students during the current exhibition.
“Last year, we didn’t have as much space, so students could not really spend much time around the exhibits. This year the area is more spaced out. Also, we have not encouraged teachers to stand along with the students. It’s the students’ projects and they should be the ones explaining it,” she added.

And the young scientists came well prepared for the exhibition. From paddle boat models made from plastic bottles to mathematical puzzles, the students, most of whom were around 14 years of age, did not disappoint their audience.

One of the most popular exhibits seemed to be the live demonstration of creating clouds inside a bottle.

The duo from Presidency School, 8th grade students, Steve and Steve, were intent on not only making sure the visitors got to see them make clouds from rubbing alcohol, but also were determined to infuse some drama.

“We didn’t really get this idea from our parents or teachers. We found the concept online,” they said.

Yet another popular project was the one displayed by the team from Delhi Public School (South).

“We have made an electric generator based on Faraday’s Law of Electromagnetic Induction. It generates electricity like a nuclear reactor, but it is safe. They have a big one in Budapest which was constructed in 2000,” says a confident Annudruth Manjunath, currently in 8th grade.

Yet another common thread amongst a lot of the projects seemed to be the fact students took to online resources to find their inspiration. “We actually saw the model in this generator on YouTube,” admits Manjunath.