These high-school teachers have not only imparted knowledge to their students but have also gone the extra mile to ensure students’ sustained interest in science. It is for this reason that they were felicitated with the ‘Outstanding Science Teacher’ awards by the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research this year.
Receiving their awards here on the JNCASR campus on Monday, Narayan Vitthalrao Babanagar of the Government Junior College for Boys, Bijapur, and Shripal Rathi from M.G. Public School in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, shared their feelings of being honoured with the award.
Mr. Babanagar was recognised for projects on biodiesel and remote sensing satellites in agriculture while Mr. Rathi was lauded for his design of a disposable syringe.
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Mr. Babanagar has funded his students’ projects so they could take part in various State-level science competitions. His students have participated in 10 such competitions.
Similarly, Mr. Rathi’s students have contested in various science fairs and have won competitions held by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and at the International Science Olympiad.
Encouraging students to pursue careers in fields they would enjoy, C.N.R. Rao advised the students to not just aspire, but to be committed to their chosen field. “Perseverance and hard work is the key to success,” he said.
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He also conducted a session on Carbo nanotubes (CNTs), as he wanted to inspire students to explore this “hot topic” in scientific research. Explaining that it was an interdisciplinary field and could be applied in physics, chemistry and biology, he said the most researches during the last 15 years had been on CNTs.