Mysuru: The Scientist – Student connect program ‘JIGYASA’ was organised by CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research) – CFTRI (Central Food Technological Research Institute), Mysuru, at its premises here recently.

The CSIR launched this programme in collaboration with Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) by signing an MoU in the presence of Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Minister of Science & Technology, Earth Sciences and Prakash Javadekar, Minister of Human Resource Development. JIGYASA aims to extend research laboratory experience to classroom learning for 1,151 KVS schools targeting 1,00,000 students and nearly 1,000 Teachers with CSIR labs across the country.

Dr. R. Subramanian, Chief Scientist, Advisor (M&A), CSIR -CFTRI inaugurated the programme. KV schools in the Mysuru region, KV-Mysuru, KV- Kodagu and KV-Hassan participated in the programme with 50 students and 5 teacher instructors.

The two-day programme included science lectures, science quiz, visits to sophisticated instrument facility, laboratories, interaction with scientists and research scholars. The main highlight of the programme was providing the students a hands – on experience on basic lab experiments. The laboratory experiments have been based on  KVS academic curriculum to provide a glimpse of exciting and inquisitive world of science. CSIR-CFTRI, being a pioneer food research institute also demonstrated various food-related technologies at its pilot plant and sophisticated Instrumentation facilities to the young minds. In addition, the display of the recent technologies of CSIR-CFTRI provided the students an insight into R&D activities of the Institute.