• India
  • Nov 23

What is CSIR’s Jigyasa programme?

Union Minister Jitendra Singh launched India’s first virtual science lab for children under CSIR Jigyasa programme, which will also connect students with scientists across the country.

What is Jigyasa?

• The Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) has been contributing to the science, technology and innovation ecosystem of the country which is one of the major drivers of growth in this competitive world. To supplement this growth a constant supply of large quantity of talent pool is required. 

• An enabling mechanism for this is capturing the mind space of school children to nurture their career in science streams. For this, the need is to create scientific temper which is a mechanism wherein students’ capabilities to use scientific methods which include questioning, observing physical reality, testing, experimenting, hypothesizing, analyzing and communicating are enhanced. 

• The (CSIR and Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) signed an MoU on Scientist–Student Connect programme ‘Jigyasa’ on July 6, 2017.

• The Jigyasa programme is a unique platform for bringing scientists and teachers together for nurturing young minds. 

• It envisages opening up the national scientific facilities to school children, enabling CSIR scientific knowledge base and facility to be utilised by schoolchildren. 

• The students will be engaged in practical activities to get a flavor of research in premier national laboratory by extending classroom learning to research and laboratory-based learning. 

The programme envisages some of the following models of engagement:

• Laboratory visit

• Popular lecture series

• Summer vacation programmes

• Scientists as teachers and teachers as scientists

• Teachers’ workshop

• Student residential programme

• Visits of scientists to schools

• Lab specific activities/onsite experiments and many more.

Virtual science lab

• CSIR has partnered with IIT Bombay to develop a virtual lab platform under CSIR Jigyasa programme, which facilitates classroom learning with laboratory research for school students. 

• The target audience for the virtual lab platform is students of the standard VI to XII (11-18 years) who would like to explore science using different activities, experienced researchers and faculties on the subjects of science, mathematics, biology and IT.

• The main aim of the virtual lab is to provide quality research exposure and innovative pedagogy for school students to drive their scientific curiosity based on an online interactive medium with simulated experiments, pedagogy based content, videos, chat forums, animations, gaming, quiz, facility sharing, webinars, etc. 

• Initially, the content will be available in English. It has been planned to be made available in Hindi and other regional languages. 

• The CSIR virtual lab will enable curiosity driven research based concepts, encourage higher order thinking skills, promote entrepreneurship and develop passion about science,

• It will provide a virtual tour of CSIR laboratories and exposure to research infrastructure, which otherwise would be difficult to visit physically in some laboratories considering safety standards.

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