Jigyasa
Also known as CSIR Jigyasa program, an initiative taken during the Platinum Jubilee year which came as an inspiration by Honorable Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of new India and ‘Scientific Social Responsibility (SSR) for CSIR. The objective of Jigyasa is to extend the classroom learning by focusing on well-planned research laboratory based learning for school students. The Jigyasa program thus initiated on the directive of Hon’ble PM in CSIR Society Meeting. Since 2017, nearly 981 Jiygasa programs were conducted by CSIR labs. About 300,000 school students, 15,000 teachers participated in different engagement modules by visiting CSIR Laboratories in close proximity till 2019 the beginning of the pandemic. During the visits, CSIR scientists directly interacted with the students and teachers. Several MOUs were signed between individual CSIR laboratories to bring in quality with value added research knowledge with Kendriya Vidyalayas (KVS), Navodaya Vidyalayas (NVS), Karnataka State S&T Academy (KSTA), Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NitiAayog, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB), NGO’s, stakeholders, individuals etc. Under the CSIR-AIM initiative, NITI Aayog’s ATL and CSIR’s Jigyasa program initiated a weekly webinar for school students which ran almost the whole pandemic period during last year and continues successfully till date. CSIR Jigyasa has created a YouTube Channel which consists of 8.6K subscribers. Recently, CSIR adopted 249 ATL’s (Atal Tinkering Lab’s) by joining hands with AIM-NitiAyaog. CSIR is open for collaboration and will be collaborating with many more stakeholders.
CSIR VIRTUAL LAB
CSIR Jigyasa Virtual Lab (CJVL) is an extension of CSIR Jigyasa program. The successful launch and abundance interest towards CSIR Jigyasa resulted in setting up the virtual lab. Due to pandemic students could not visit the labs to get value added research exposure by scientists. Hence Honourable Prime Minister encouraged for developing a Virtual Lab so that science can further be taken to all segments of the students from each and every corner of the country. A concept note was developed and a task force committee was setup by CSIR Director General. Research survey was carried out by CSIR-NCL on the existing Indian and International virtual labs and a study was conducted on the NEP & STIP policies. Discussion meetings and presentations were made. In 2020, a pilot phase of six months was carried out by the CSIR laboratories for developing fun activities based on science for students. The software development is outsourced to IITB, Mumbai on an MOU signed between CSIR-NCL and IITB. The pilot phase of CJVL successfully ended on 31st March, 21. The objective of CJVL is to create scientific models and make them interesting to students so that students can engage with science by having fun. This platform offers free access to students online as well as offline. The platform consists of dual potential namely Jigyasa and Virtual lab thus upgrading it to higher version 2.0. It boosts to encourage and inculcate culture of inquisitiveness, critical thinking on one hand and technology oriented thinking, self-learning, scientific temper on the other. It will continue with existing engagement modules and also offer newer modules to retain student enthusiasm.