Popular Science Master Classes by Scientists from IIT Guwahati 

On October 21-22, 2018, after the cultural programme organized in the IRMT on the occasion to the 114th Anniversary of Svetoslav Roerich, two visiting scientists who were guests at the anniversary celebrations: Dr. Harsh Chaturvedi, Asst. Professor, Center for Energy, IIT Guwahati; and Prof. Charu Monga, Department of Design, IIT Guwahati, gave two master classes for the students of the Helena Roerich Academy of Arts for Children and for the local students of senior classes.

At the first master class children met a fascinating world of natural sciences. They were assembling electrical schemes with educational circuit kits and learned a lot about electrical current laws. Under kind supervision of scientists they built microscopes with lenses and cardboard and studied biological specimens such as onion peel. Thus, the masterclass was full of joyful openings.

Commenting on the scientific value of the activity, Dr. Chaturvedi said the following, “Such a simple and entertaining class helps introduce basic scientific concepts to even the youngest of students: sunrise and sunset, clock hands movement, high and low tide, movements of plants exposed to the power of wind. This way, children can absorb science the easy way, without cramming formulae.”

At the other master class the students were divided in five groups. Modelling clay and cookie moulds were provided to each group and the children were asked to make anything they liked. Working with much excitement, the children came up with multi-coloured figures of butterflies, snakes, flowers, trees, etc. This done, the guests demonstrated how various arrangements of these simple forms could be used to make short animations. Making use of the application “Animate It” they created a dozen frames for the clay figures made by each group and joined these frames in lovely and quite humorous short visual sequences. With boundless delight the big-eyed participants of the workshop watched how their unsophisticated creations came to life on screen.