Portal:Science

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Welcome to the Science Portal Science, as a body of knowledge as we know it today, is remarkably young, not more than a few hundred years old. And what we know also as science largely relates to the facts and explanations of everyday life. There is a need to examine what constitutes science as a process, the discipline of doing science. What are those elements of study and practice that distinguish science as an endeavour? What are the social dynamics that influence the practice of science? What are the limits of science itself? These are questions that have to be considered by a student of science. Science is also often understood as learning science as a subject and this involves the teaching and learning science and the pedagogy that must be adopted to develop a scientific bent of mind and to prepare the learner for doing science. This is a portal for students and teachers to understand and share resources on both these areas.

Classroom resources This section will feature resources for classroom teaching including online, digital and other hands-on activities. Click here for mind maps, activities, video and multimedia resources for science lessons in Class 9.The resources have been developed to help build conceptual understanding and have been arranged according to the chapters in the textbook. Light Gravitation Heat

Featured resource This is one of nature’s great marvels – the precision with which the Archer Fish uses a jet of water to stun its prey. This is a wonderful resource to generate discussion in the class on many topics like the way light travels, refraction of light, how animals see and how different animals have evolved mechanisms for survival.

Famous Scientists A question in a Physics exam at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark several decades ago said: "Describe how to determine the height of a skyscraper with a barometer." One student replied: "You tie a long piece of string to the neck of the barometer, then lower the barometer from the roof of the skyscraper to the ground. The length of the string plus the length of the barometer will equal the height of the building." This highly original answer so incensed the examiner that the student was failed. (Read More).... The student appealed on the grounds that his answer was indisputably correct, and the university appointed an independent arbitrator to decide the case. The arbitrator judged that the answer was indeed correct, but did not display any noticeable knowledge of physics. To resolve the problem it was decided to call the student in and allow him six minutes in which to show a minimal familiarity with the basic principles of Physics. For five minutes the student sat in silence, forehead creased in thought. The arbiter reminded him that time was running out, to which the student replied that he had several extremely relevant answers, but couldn't make up his mind which to use. On being advised to hurry up the student replied as follows: "Firstly, you could take the barometer up to the roof of the skyscraper, drop it over the edge, and measure the time it takes to reach the ground. The height of the building can then be worked out from the formula ${\textstyle H=0.5g\times t^{2}}$. But bad luck on the barometer." "Or if the sun is shining you could measure the height of the barometer, then set it on end and measure the length of its shadow. Then you measure the length of the skyscraper's shadow, and thereafter it is a simple matter of proportional arithmetic to work out the height of the skyscraper." "But if you wanted to be highly scientific about it, you could tie a short piece of string to the barometer and swing it like a pendulum, first at ground level and then on the roof of the skyscraper. The height is worked out by the difference in the gravitational restoring force ${\textstyle T=2\pi {\sqrt {\left({\frac {l}{g}}\right)}}}$." "Or if the skyscraper has an outside emergency staircase, it would be easier to walk up it and mark off the height of the skyscraper in barometer lengths, then add them up." "If you merely wanted to be boring and orthodox about it, of course, you could use the barometer to measure the air pressure on the roof of the skyscraper and on the ground, and convert the difference in millibars into feet give the height of the building." "But since we are constantly being exhorted to exercise independence of mind and apply scientific methods, undoubtedly the best way would be to knock on the janitor's door and say to him 'If you would like a nice new barometer, I will give you this one if you tell me the height of this skyscraper'." The student was Niels Bohr, who went on to win the Nobel Prize for Physics. For more stories about scientists click here

Resources for hands-on activities This is a collection of hands-on activities that can be used for Vidyagama program. Check regularly for updates. [http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/david4.pdf Let's discover science is a handbook full of several exploratory activities for doing science. Many of these can be done independently by children as well and can be an useful addition for the Vidyagama program.

Setting up a science lab in school Doing science is one of the most important requirements in school teaching. The objectives of experimentation is to know how to go about the process of doing and observing as well as to understand the processes of experimentation. An inductive process is essential. Click here to see resources on how to set up a science laboratory in school. This page also contains videos of several experiments demonstrated by teachers.

Understanding the science of COVID 19 www.medscape.com/viewarticles/933261 This is a very clear description of the immune responses to COVID and the mechanisms of how vaccines work. This is a conversaiton between Dr Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist and Dr Eric Topol.