21 Nov : National Children’s Science Congress (NCSC) became a nationwide activity since 1993, with the holding of the first NCSC in Delhi. Since then, NCSC is held during the last five days (27th-31st) of December every year.
The primary objective of Children’s Science Congress is to make a forum available to children in the age group of 10-17 years, both from formal school system as well as out of school, to exhibit their creativity and innovativeness and more particularly their ability to solve a societal problem experienced locally, using the methods of science. Children Science Congress (CSC) prompts children to think of some significant societal problem ponder over its causes and subsequently try and solve the same, using the scientific process. It encourages a sense of discovery and emboldens the participants to question many aspects of our progress and development and express their findings in vernacular.
Eligibility: The forum is open to young scientists in the age group of 10-17 years as on 31st December of the calendar year. NCSC is not restricted to the school going children only, but is also open for the non-school children from the marginalized sections of the society.
Areas of research: Every year a focal theme is announced for CSC and the children are expected to carry out the projects related to the focal theme and the identified sub-themes. A group of children not exceeding five can do the project with the help of scientists, schoolteachers, co-coordinators of school science clubs, activists of science based voluntary organizations etc. The teachers/guides receives special orientation on the theme of CSC every year. The child scientists must also prove their communication skills to make others listen and understand their findings.
What are good projects: As per past experience it has been found that projects rated very good, had the following elements:
· Proper understanding and definition of the project undertaken
· Quality and quantity of work, including team work, learning process, subject understanding and efforts to validate the data collected.
· Relevance of the proposal to the community/school problem and impact of the project on schoolmates, neighborhood community.
· Originality, innovation and creativity to understand the methodology and experiment design.
Organisers: The Congress is organized by NCSTC- Network, a registered society comprising a network of 65 organizations (governmental and non-Governmental) working for science popularization and facilitated from 1991 onwards by the National Council for science and Technology Communication, Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India. Every State has a co-coordinating body and in Nagaland, Nagaland Institute of Health, Environment and Social Welfare (NIHESW) coordinates the programme.
Nagaland will be hosting the 16th National’s Children’s Science Congress, at Dimapur from 27th to 31st December 2008. Hundreds of child scientists from across the country will take part in the six-day event to be held at Livingstone Foundation Higher Secondary School, Dimapur. The qualitative and quantitative expansion of NCSC has drawn attention of different countries and in the previous years, observers from Germany, Bangladesh etc attended NCSC. Eight child scientists will represent Nagaland State, during the first ever Congress to be hosted by the Govt. of Nagaland in collaboration with NIHESW.