Bent on developing scientific temper in children and exposing them to space science, Chattisgarh’s Bastar district administration has started a state-of-the-art astronomy lab in a government English medium school. The lab has been made in a way that students find appealing and they start taking interest in science, especially astronomy. It has become the cynosure of all eyes with both students and parents equally inquisitive to know about the celestial bodies.

The concept of this lab was inspired by 2017-batch IAS officer Rohit Vyas, an amateur astronomer himself, and the CEO of Zila Panchayat, Bastar, after noting that the district has huge potential for stargazing. 

Indian Masterminds interacted with Mr. Rohit Vyas to get more details about this initiative.

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AROUSING CHILDREN’S INTEREST

Funds for the lab were arranged by the district administration which even trained the existing teachers to run it. The well-equipped lab includes space models, telescopes, working models of solar eclipse and lunar eclipse, different kind of telescopes for demonstration purpose, portrait of icons of astronomy, star charts, etc.

Ever since its opening, it has fascinated children to such an extent that the number of enrollments in the school has increased. This in turn will bring a change in the level of education in government schools and provide the students with an exposure to multidisciplinary studies, and also make them pursue education with keen interest and teach them to dream big. Mr. Vyas said, “I personally feel that if children are exposed to such topics at this stage, then while growing up, they can explore career options in fields like astronomy and astrophysics also.”

THE ASTRONOMY LAB

This first-of-its-kind initiative in the state was taken up in the Lohandiguda village, where Swami Atmanand Government Excellence School got the state’s first astronomy laboratory, which was inaugurated by Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel. The CM said that the main aim is to develop a scientific temper among school-going children and increase their understanding of complexity and ability of empirical work, besides developing practical skills, among  the primary, upper primary, higher and higher secondary students.

Mr. Vyas told Indian Masterminds, “The Swami Atmanand English Medium School is a chain of English medium school established by the Chhattisgarh government on 1 November, 2020. And, I and the District Collector both are interested in astronomy. So, we just wanted to explore whether we can give exposure to our children on astronomy, so that later on, they can even pursue a career in it.”

He further pointed out that although during childhood, many students want to become astronaut, once they grow up, they fall for the old pattern of doctor, engineer or governments jobs. So basically the idea was to expose the children to how a scientist think, how the universe works, knowledge about Indian origin astronauts like Sunita Williams, Rakesh Sharma and Kalpana Chawla, etc. He also added that it was possible to start the lab only because of the English medium government schools started by the state government as model schools.

Then Bastar Collector Rajat Bansal, IAS, currently district collector of BalodaBazar–Bhatapara, said that initially they were not very sure about the success of the lab. However, when the students looked at the sun, moon and the stars through the telescopes, their interest grew. Not just the children, even their parents and other adult residents of the village are showing interest in star gazing now. With the success of this lab, the state government is now planning to establish such labs in other districts as well, he informed.

WHAT’S IN THE LAB

The walls of the lab are adorned with info-graphic wallpapers giving information about planets, galaxy, moon, black hole, comet, asteroids, etc. It also has numerous demonstrative and working models for studying various topics like the solar system, solar and lunar eclipses, day and night on earth, Newton’s laws, phases of the moon, anti gravity, cosmic rays, etc. through an ocular learning process.

The ceiling is designed in astronomical pattern, with attractive and realistic demonstration based pictures bearing information about various topics of science and astronomy like augmented reality, mars explorer Globe, moon phase annual calendar, 3D surface of moon and mars astronaut biopics. Similarly, posters are pasted all over the walls of this lab to fire the imagination of the young kids.

The lab is also equipped with smart TVs and equipments such as Pinhole projector, sundial, Van-de Graff generator model, microscope, Newton’s colour disc, ray optics, premium spectroscope, and many other astronomical study equipment. Needless to say, the telescopes are one of the major attractions of the lab. Many types of telescope of various sizes have been provided here, which include small and medium Newtonian reflector telescope, Galilean telescope and terrestrial telescope.

The laboratory also has an astronomical library where different types of books and magazines are kept, such as the encyclopedia of space, galaxies and universe, encyclopedia of stars, planets, satellites of the solar system and its dwarf planets, etc.

FUTURE PLANS

Mr. Vyas said that, as of now, they have developed two such labs in government English medium schools at the block levels. But, there are plans to include more schools in this initiative. “It will depend on the availability of space. Usually, in most schools, there is room shortage even for classes. So whichever school has extra space will be chosen first. The reason for choosing English medium schools is that all contents related to astronomy are mostly available in English, so it would be difficult to set up an astronomy lab in a Hindi medium school.”