Science city

Gujarat Science City is organizing a series of popular science writing and illustration workshop for secondary school children of the state to inculcate scientific temper and attitude development among young students. The programme has been catalyzed and supported by the National Council of Science & Technology Communication (NCSTC), Department of Science & Technology, Government of India. It would be a pilot programme and the result will show more inspiration for the participants as well as the organizers.

The programme has been planned as an innovative activity on creative and popular science writing and illustration by the secondary school children (Class VIII and IX) through a series of workshops. The programme aims to inculcate scientific temperament and attitude among the young minds by understanding the science and technology better and to adopt the popular science writing, illustrations and reporting for further dissemination purposes.

This will help the school students by understanding the concepts and methodology of science and allow them for their own creative interpretations in forms of popular science writings, illustrations. This is a very innovative way of developing children science literature and there is very little work has been carried out at any state and national level.

The programme has been planned for six workshops to be completed in one year duration. There will be five workshops, targeted to 50 selected participants from five districts of Gujarat at a time. The sixth workshop will be conducted as an advance level workshop for the 50 selected participants of the previous camps. Each of the workshops will be of four days duration.
The programme will train the participants about different science, technology and societal issues, how S&T could be harnessed to solve the different complex problems in the society. It also aims to train the participants on the basic skills in writing scientific stories, features, articles and scripts for different media like the print media as well as the sophisticated electronic media. Attempt will also be made for the participants that how they can able to fill their writings with appropriate illustrations and designs. The workshop is also intended to give a first hand knowledge about science journalism and will train the budding science writers to be professional science communicators and journalists in their future career.

The first workshop in this regard has been starting from 12th to 15th July 2007 for the participants of Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Kheda, Dahod and Panchmahal district. About 50 participants comprising of school students, VIPNET Science Club and teachers and budding journalists have been invited to attend the workshop. Dr. Manoj K. Patariya, Scientist "F" & Director, NCSTC-DST, Government of India has been given consent to inaugurate the first workshop and to interact with the students. A brief information about the programme is enclosed herewith for your kind perusal.