20,000 plus students attend ‘Magnifi Science Exhibition’ on first day

Three-day exhibition at Dawood Public School, open to all, ends tomorrow

KARACHI: Learning science through fun and interactive illusions, experiments and magic, the three buildings of Dawood Public School (DPS) were packed on Friday with amazed students, trying to find answers to scientific reactions.

The Dawood Foundation (TDF) organised a three-day-long science exhibition, 'TDF Magnifi Science Exhibition', with more than 35 classes on the ground and first floor of the DPS A-Level section and the ground floor of the pre-primary section buildings set up for interactive sessions and live experiments.



On the first day, more than 20,000 students from 55 schools of the city visited the exhibition. The Sindh government's education and literacy department had mobilised the students from the public-sector schools to attend the science exhibition.

With three themes — basic science, science and technology and earth science — the exhibition aimed to cater to everyone's interests. The 'basic science' themed floor consisted of small experiments such as optical illusions, garage science and science fuse that were focused towards the use of logic through observation by the students in order to explain the experiments. Many confused an optical illusion experiment with a mirror as magic, till a class 10 volunteer Amna Jafrani clarified the logic behind the illusion.

"Majority of the students do not know the names of science terms in Urdu that is as necessary to know as the English ones," said team 'Dhere Bolo' co-founder Nadine Murtaza, while singing in Urdu to make students learn the names of planets on the basic science floor.

Live experimentation was taking place in the science and technology section, where students understood chemical reactions and learnt robotics from teachers.



The half front of a car had been attached to the wall, while the students explained the gear system that, according to them, is almost similar to that of watches and other machinery that has revolving gears. With dark and low lights spread across the floor, the earth science section depicted a room with marine life and another with the solar system and the galaxy.



Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, education minister Jam Mehtab Dahar and education secretary Fazlullah Pechuho also attended the exhibition. They visited the stalls and encouraged schools to hold such exhibitions more often. Oxford University Press and Dawood University of Engineering and Technology, along with various other organisations, including Pakistan Science Club, helped the students connect with science through different interactive workshops. The exhibition is open to public, free of charge, and continues till tomorrow (September 25).

Published in The Express Tribune, September 24^th, 2016.