There’s never a wrong time to do the right thing. That’s the credo of CA Block’s Salt Lake School. So even when it was unable to celebrate National Science Day in February along with the rest of the country, it forged ahead and held it in the second half of the year. There were exhibitions, seminars, quiz, debate and a whole of learning. 

In a darkened classroom, students were shown a video on the skyline as visible from the surface of the moon. Aditi Ghose, an education assistant of Birla Industrial & Technological Museum (BITM), was conducting the session and was delighted to receive questions on planets, stars and Mangalyaan, India’s Mars Orbiter Mission. 

“We want to be astronauts,” chorused Sananda Pramik and Rajanya Dey of Class IV after the show. “And I want to go to Mars,” said Diksha Roy. “Light and dust pollution levels are so high in our city that most people can’t see the stars even if they look up,” said Ghose. “Despite that students showed so much interest today.”

There were also fun sessions on physics using household items like bottles and balloons and some vedic math demonstrations.  

BITM had also sent a mobile science exhibition. This was a van parked inside the school with infographics on digital India. There was a communication timeline, evolutionary landmarks in computing technology, agricultural technology etc. But the real reason why everyone wanted access to this van was because it was air-conditioned. 

“How I wish the sit-and-draw contest was held inside this van,” said a sweating Anit Ketal Suil of Class VI. The contest had topics like “Save energy — use it wisely and with care” and “Save a watt, save a lot”. 

The senior school took part in a quiz where student emcee Anurag Sahu kept them guessing with questions like: “Which country does environmentalist and Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai belong to? (Kenya) Which Spain-based company is supplying the super fast trains to India? (Talgo).”

And when the four Houses — Lily, Sunflower, Bluebell and Rose — failed to answer the questions bounced to the audience where students like Meghabati De Amin of Class XI frantically waved their hands to have a go. “I find quizzes great fun but couldn’t join this year as only classes IX and X were allowed to join,” said the girl after correctly recognising Barack Obama’s voice in an audio round where he spoke of the Hiroshima bombs. 

“The trend these days is for students to pursue medical or engineering streams in college. We want to conduct events like these to retain their interest in basic sciences like physics, chemistry and biology,” said chemistry teacher Sekhar Chandra Pal. He and English teacher Payal Das were in charge of the event. “We were unable to hold National Science Day in February due to exams but have been celebrating it sooner or later for three years now.” 

Students got involved in a fierce debate. The topic was “The human species should be preserved even at the risk of endangering the plant species.” Aayushi Sengupta, who won the best speaker prize, felt an ecological balance was desirable whereas Agnisha Pal, who got special mention, said human life depends greatly on plants and so greenery must be preserved. 

Another highlight was an appearance by Sisir Kumar Banerjee, president of the engineering science division of the Indian Science Congress Association. “Mr Banerjee asked how many of us were science, arts, commerce students but then said science was applicable for us all,” smiled Suchintan Das, a student, after attending his talk. “He talked to us about the Vivekananda Road flyover collapse and urged teachers to go out of syllabus and make it relatable to real life. That’s what I like best about him.”