Dates: July 4-8, 2016

Time: 10.00 am to 5.30 pm

Venue: Lecture Hall Complex, IISER Pune

The Centre of Excellence in Science and Mathematics Education (COESME) at IISER Pune and Vigyan Asram, Pabal have organised this five-day workshop for teams of 4 students and 1 teacher from rural schools in ten districts of Maharashtra.

It is well-known that students learn best by doing. The aim of this workshop is to motivate students to think like innovators and come up with solutions to the problems in their surrounding world. Students will be introduced to the methodology (process) of innovation and a research environment to encourage scientific temper and critical thinking among them. An essential component of the workshop will also be to equip teachers to look at innovation as a pedagogical tool so that they are able to inculcate inquiry based reasoning and innovative thinking amongst their students.

In teams, the participants will be asked to identify a problem from their day-to-day life and come up with practical, scaleable solutions, based on scientific methods. IISER faculty members and other experts from Vigyan Ashram, academia and industry will facilitate this process, provide guidance and help in trouble shooting. The groups are expected to continue working on their problems and model sloutions even after the workshop, with an aim to present these are local Science Day celebrations and other avenues, including the internet.