3-day chemistry camp for school students at IISER

: Aiming to inspire young minds to develop interest in chemical sciences, a three-day residential chemistry camp for school students began at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research here Friday.

Popularly known as Salters' Chemistry Camps, the programme has been jointly organised by the Royal Society of Chemistry India, Salters' Institute, U.K and the IISER, Thiruvananthapuram.

The camp activities are conducted in the state local language Malayalam, an IISER press release said.

Seventy two ninth standard students from various parts of Thiruvananthapuram are participating in the camp.

The Salters Chemistry Camps India, part of the "Inspirational Chemistry Programme" project in India, is supported by Dr Yusuf Hamied (Non-executive Chairman- Cipla Ltd), a leading Indian philanthropist and a pioneer in the pharmaceutical Industry, who has committed to provide Rs eight crore for this five-year programme, which includes training school science teachers also, the release said.

This is the first chemistry camp being conducted at the IISER campus here.

Totally, 22 Salters Chemistry camps have trained over 1,200 students from over 400 schools across 14 states since the launch of the programme in 2015, the release said.

Prof Sir John Holman, Chairman, Salters Institute and past President of the Royal Society of Chemistry said 'The camps have been very successful in the UK as a way of sparking interest and enthusiasm among young people for the future study of chemisry".

Inaugurating the camp, Dr Mahesh Hariharan, Associate Professor, School of Chemistry, IISER,said the students should make best use of the opportunity to interact with scientists from IISER to learn more about science.

Dr Reji Varghese of IISER, Thiruvananthapuram, said the camp was aimed at reaching out to the less previleged, but bright young minds of society, who have a zeal to learn and know key scientific concepts through experimentation.

"The camp will help develop the scientific temparament of such students and they will get hands-on experience in our state-of-the-art chemistry labs," Dr Verghese said.