Workshop for chemistry teachers

With an objective of helping government school students better comprehend abstract concepts in chemistry, a Central Government agency is conducting a three-day national work shop here for teachers from Wednesday.

With 50 Government schools from 20 districts taking part, the ‘National Sensitisation Workshop on Chemistry Teaching' is being conducted by Vigyan Prasar (VP), New Delhi, at the School of Chemistry, Madurai Kamaraj University, in association with Tamil Nadu Science Forum (TNSF).

Established in 1989, the VP is an autonomous organisation under the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, which takes on large-scale science and technology popularisation tasks.

Addressing a press conference, VP scientist T.V. Venkateswaran said that this year has been declared as the International Year of Chemistry as it marked the centenary year for two events.

The year 2011 coincided with the 100th anniversary of the Nobel Prize awarded to Madame Marie Curie, the first women to bag this honour, and of the founding of International Association of Chemical Societies (now known as International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, an international federation representing chemists). This year also had a special relevance to India as it was the 150{+t}{+h} birth anniversary of Prafulla Chandra Ray, a chemist and entrepreneur who established ‘Bengal Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals,' India's first chemical and pharmaceutical company which helped bring down the prizes of medicines.

A. Ramu, chairperson, MKU School of Chemistry, spoke. Other resource persons for the meeting include Dr. A. Rana and Swathi Bedekar.