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Year of mathematics
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Students at the annual science exhibition of Stewart School in Bhubaneswar.
Picture by Ashwinee Pati |
The year 2012 has been declared as the “Year of Mathematics” by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to commemorate the 125th birth anniversary of legendary mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. As a befitting start to the year, the DAV Public School, Chandrasekharpur, Bhubaneswar, organised a mathematics exhibition on its campus on January 7.
Students with a yen for the subject displayed more than 100 projects based on various components such as geometry, arithmetic, algebra, statistics and trigonometry. “Students often find maths to be tough because they lack a thorough understanding of the subject. The exhibition aims to make children develop an interest in it,” said Abhishek, a student.
Principal K.C. Satapathy spoke about various events on the theme of mathematics to be undertaken by the school this year.
“We have also decided to observe December 22, Ramanujan’s birthday, as Mathematics Day, every year henceforth. Now, we are even contemplating to institute cash awards for underprivileged students to cultivate a mathematical temperament,” he said.
Head of the mathematics department at Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, Salila Dutta inaugurated the exhibition and said every school must encourage its students to explore, experiment and exhibit knowledge in the subject.
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(From top) A student demonstrates his model during the three-day science exhibition at DAV Public School, Berhampur; former national football and kho kho player, Geetanjali Samantaray meets young athletes during the Sahodaya inter-school girls’ kho kho championship; students at the storytelling session at SAI International school in Bhubaneswar and a student explains his project at the mathematics exhibition at DAV Public School, Chandrasekharpur, Bhubaneswar. Picture by Gopal Krishna Reddy and Telegraph pictures |
Storytelling
Tiny tots of Sai International School, Bhubaneswar, received moral lessons in the form of interesting stories as American writer Ellen Handler Spitz read out excerpts from some popular children’s books. Ellen, also a researcher of children’s literature, spent two hours with the students of classes III and IV on January 12 and stimulated the kids' imagination through her storytelling. One of her stories was based on former South African President Nelson Mandela’s campaign for Africans.
“Imagination is a conscious activity that requires a great amount of focus and concentration. Storytelling can create a number of scenarios and possibilities. It can make the impossible possible. For example, our storybooks have animals talking, people talking, things vanishing and so on. But my aim was not to teach children to live in a fantasyland. I told them about humanitarian values, something that can help them become better individuals,” she said.
Green science
The campus of DAV Public School, Berhampur, was filled with young science enthusiasts from January 9 to 11 as they displayed various models geared towards environmental awareness, renewable energy and sustainable living.
Projects on rainwater harvesting, composting, tissue culture, biodiversity, waste recycling, mushroom cultivation, renewable energy and bio-informatics were among some of the highlights of the exhibition.
A few models, which had found a place in the Children's Science Congress under the auspices of the 99th Indian Science Congress in Bhubaneswar, were also put up. Around 500 students from 26 schools of Berhampur visited the exhibition.
Director of the Centre for Environmental Studies, state department of forests and environment, Shailabala Padhy inaugurated the three-day show and stressed the need for popularising science among students.
The exhibition was organised by the Ganapati Sabat Foundation in the capital and sponsored by the National Council for Science and Technology Communication, department of science and technology, government of India.
Kho-kho all the way
DAV Public School, Kalinganagar, won the Sahodaya Inter-School Girls’ Kho-Kho Championship by beating Delhi Public School, Kalinga, on January 10. The two-day event, hosted by DAV Pokhariput, Bhubaneswar, saw the participation of 12 CBSE schools in and around the capital city vying for the title. The winners were given a trophy by former national football and kho-kho player, Geetanjali Samantaray, who was later felicitated by the host school’s chairman M.M. Panda and principal Sujata
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