Students use science to bridge gap between Pune, Northeast

Four city students went on a four-week tour to West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh to spread the message of science education.

In an effort to spend their vacations in unique way, a group of four students from Fergusson College went on a four-week tour to three Northeastern states and West Bengal, to spread the message of science education and national integrity.

The four students — Vishal Savai, Khandu Doke, Vikas Jadhav and Yogesh Thorat — travelled from November 21 to December 18, across West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, in which they spread awareness about girl child and also held science awareness workshops in 25 schools across the four states where they interacted with over 3,000 students. Holding workshops and performing street plays

outside railway stations, which was attended by hundreds of people, the students say the motive behind choosing the four states was a personal experience.

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“One of my friends hailed from the Northeast and we used to see how he would get teased. We believe that there is a lack of communication between the people of Maharashtra and the people from the Northeast. Very often they are discriminated racially and it comes from the fact that we don’t know them… Since we are science students, we thought of conducting science workshops in order to engage with school students and do something positive,” said Vishal Savai. The youngsters say they taught various concepts of science by practical demonstrations like centrifugal force, pressure, volume, sound, etc to students ranging from Class II to X.

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“In science classes, we have been receiving more theoretical than practical-based teaching and our main intention was to ‘show’ science to students and enhance their knowledge and interest both,” he added.

On being asked about the inspiration behind this month-long campaign, another youth Khandu Doke said it was the need to give back to society. “There are many issues pertaining to dowry, discrimination between the boy and the girl child with girls being ill-treated. So keeping all these factors in mind, we had embarked on the journey to spread awareness. But we also learnt a lot during the process,” he said.

After exploring Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim, they got to learn a lot about the cultural aspects of these states. “All these places are very beautiful both from inside and outside. People there are polite, culturally rooted. But one thing that struck us was how women are treated equally at par with men. They are well respected and in most cases they run their households and not the men. It means that not only can we teach certain things to people from these states but also learn from them and that’s why such exchanges are important,” said Yogesh Thorat.