WLB school outreach programme 2025 at IISER Kolkata
Date and Venue
[edit]- Date: 11th July 2025 (Friday)
- Time: 10:30 am
- Venue: IISER Kolkata
- MAP: Map
- Meeting Point:
Co-ordinator
[edit]Email id: souvickthekai@gmail.com
Participating schools
[edit]More than 1,000 students from over 40 schools attended the Open Day, including institutions from Kolkata and neighbouring districts. Among the participating schools were Garden High School and Rajlakshmi Kanya Vidyapith, whose students engaged actively with the demonstrations and exhibitions. The visiting school students represented a mix of science-focused and general-stream institutions, providing a diverse audience for the institute’s outreach activities.
Description of the event
[edit]A major highlight of the Open Day was the Nature Club stall, organised in collaboration with Wiki Loves Butterfly. The stall attracted a large footfall throughout the day, with hundreds of students and teachers visiting. Volunteers distributed the butterfly story booklet “An Autumn Morning and Tinni's Secret Friend” to school students, along with butterfly and other biodiversity booklets for schools, as well as species-themed stickers and badges. The stall also hosted a “draw your favourite species” activity, where students enthusiastically sketched butterflies and other animals. Participants received badges and stickers of the species they drew, and hundreds of leaflets, badges and stickers were distributed in total. This engagement-focused corner of the event helped introduce young visitors to local biodiversity, conservation ideas and Wikimedia-based outreach in a playful, hands-on manner.
IISER Kolkata celebrated its 20th Foundation Day as an Institute Open Day on 11 July. The programme began with a Foundation Day lecture by G. Satheesh Reddy (former Chairman, DRDO; former Scientific Adviser to the Raksha Mantri; President, Aeronautical Society of India) on the theme “Evolving science and technology ecosphere”, highlighting India’s scientific progress, technological self-reliance and the importance of interdisciplinary research. On this occasion, the institute also formally launched a new five-year BS–MS dual degree programme in Computational and Data Sciences, designed to integrate core computer science with the basic sciences and to enable applications such as the use of artificial intelligence in physics and other disciplines.
In the second half of the day, the campus functioned as an open science exhibition. Students and researchers from various departments showcased experiments, demonstrations and posters, offering visitors hands-on exposure to topics such as electrocardiograms (ECGs), human anatomy and skeletal systems, plant and animal cell structure, chemistry experiments and mathematical models. School students had guided visits to research laboratories, interacted with IISER students, faculty and the chief guest, and were introduced to ongoing research activities and facilities. Teachers accompanying the students noted that the event helped connect textbook concepts with real-world scientific practice and was intended to foster scientific curiosity and aspirations for careers in science and technology.
