For four months this year, a group of five students in Puducherry woke up before the crack of dawn every day to record sunrise, and keep a tab on sunset timings. They also used easily-available materials to devise a system tracking wind speed and direction, humidity, maximum and minimum temperatures and rainfall.
The miniature ‘weather station’ set up at the Government High School, Sellipet, has won the team the top place at the 9th edition of the ‘Faites de la science’ or the ‘Make Science’ competition conducted by the University of Paris, South 11, Orsay (Université Paris-Sud 11) and the Pondicherry Science Forum (PSF) in association with the Directorate of School Education and the Department of Science, Technology and Environment (DSTE).
The Sellipet school team is a first-time participant in the competition, and its project, ‘Construction of local weather station’ has provided valuable primary meteorological data, said the PSF. The team headed by teacher S. Rajkumar and comprising of students Manikandan KP., Pavitra P., Pooja S., Nivedha S., and Ramkumar M., won a cash prize of 300 Euros.
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The competition, exclusively for government schools in Puducherry, had 40 research projects this year, of which 12 were selected by the PSF for a grant for further work. Editions of the competition are held in several countries for students from Standard VII to IX to carry out mini scientific projects in teams.
In India, the competition is held only in Puducherry, said the PSF. Sylvie Salamitou coordinates the competition from the University of Paris, while T.P. Raghunath, secretary of PSF, coordinates it here.
A jury from the University of Paris selected four among the projects for cash prizes, after going through its documentations prepared by PSF. The winners were announced by jury head, Sylvie Retailleau, Dean of the Faculty of Sciences, University of Paris, at a live video conference which was streamed at the Directorate of School Education on Thursday.
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L. Kumar, director, Directorate of School Education, said, “The competition not just identifies and nurtures scientific temperament but helps to develop soft skills too.”
Ms. Retailleau told the students to be proud of their projects, adding, “To practise science is to better understand it.”
Another first-time participating team was the Government Higher Secondary School, Karayambuthur, headed by teacher V. Jayasundhar, which won the second place and a cash prize of 100 Euros for its project, ‘Analysis of amount harvest electrical energy by the innovative Bobber wave energizer’. “This has been a new experience for us. We will encourage others from our school to participate next time,” said Jaganathan J., one of the student team members.
Mr. Jayasundhar added that they went through several processes of trial and error before perfecting the working model which they presented to the jury.
For K. Aarthi of Savarayalunayagar Government Girls High School, the idea of ‘seeing sound’ was a revelation. Her team headed by teacher A. Usharani tied for second place and won a cash prize of 100 Euros for its project, ‘Visualising the sound’ which used laser lights to create patterns based on sound waves. The ASN Government Middle School, Mudaliarpet, a regular participant of the competition with guide teacher D. Aravindaraja, won the Special Students Jury Award and a cash prize of 100 Euros for its project, ‘Ecosystem Engineers: Which soil type do earthworms like best?’
DSTE director M. Dwarakanath said that the competition must be expanded to colleges and for facilitation of student exchange programmes with the University of Paris. He also encouraged more schools to participate in the competition in future editions.