From wow to how

Sarika Sharma

A rabbit inside a small glass enclosure with a little opening is just too enticing for this little kid. Her grandfather is coaxing her to catch it. She tries, but the rabbit ducks and hides inside a little hole on the surface. Several failed attempts follow. All giggly, she seems slightly lost when her grandfather tells her that her hand is blocking the way of a ray of light, which is making the rabbit, a toy, go down. This is no less a wonder for Jaspreet Singh, a class 10 student from Khetla village in Sangrur, too, who is visiting the Pushpa Gujral Science City (PGSC) in Kapurthala for the first time.

For Jaspreet, it has been fun to see chapters from his science book in real. “Almost everything we have read in our textbooks is here. Except for the film on moon!” he grins and moves on towards the space gallery, along with his friends. Jaspreet is among the thousands of government school students from Punjab, who have been visiting the Science City since last year, thanks to the Mukh Mantri Vigyan Yatra, sponsored by the state government, to help youth get up, close and personal with science, and see how stuff works. While 7,300 students visited the project last year, this year the number would touch 27,000 in August. The numbers are a boost to the otherwise low footfall of 1,000 per month. For the statistics, four lakh persons visited the Science City in its year of inception in 2005.

The Science City has been set up across 72 acres in Kapurthala. While wonders of science are known to evoke wows, this project wants to take visitors on a journey exploring how. Aimed at fuelling interest for science and answering everyday queries, it covers areas like physical and natural sciences, engineering, technology, health sciences, energy, human evolution and civilisation, besides frontier areas such as space, nuclear science, information technology and robotics.

Science can be complex, but its understanding is made fun with examples. How various lenses work is explained through a rotating mask. One exhibit with a ball titled ‘Pick me up if you can’ works around two paraboloidal mirrors, kept at a distance, forming the image of a ball, which is seen as floating above the hole of top mirror.

And how seemingly easy stuff can be a complex web of science is explained through a dummy cricket pitch in the Science of Sports gallery. What you get to see is just a green mat, but what happens on the ground is determined by what’s underneath it. Well, what has been driving the nation crazy for the last several decades actually plays out a bed of earth lined with coarse gravel, followed by loam, a mix of clay, silk and sand. 

Another example is a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), which is a prototype of a space launcher (one that releases fake smoke too!), the actual process explained on a computer screen nearby.

Outdoors, the dinosaur park makes for an amazing walk through history and displays 44 dinosaurs from three eras and ranging from as long as 140 feet to as tiny as 1 foot. A climate change theatre shows a film on how man is wreaking havoc on earth, adding to the delight of young ones as what is shown on screen is also projected around them through models. Of glaciers melting, of life on earth, in air and water being threatened… And all this threatening our very existence in the 22nd century. They reiterate upon the things we already know. Like turning off the lights when not in use. You know the message has reached home when your little one runs back from the door to switch off the buttons of the model of a nuclear reactor at one of the galleries in the energy park!

Among others are the recently opened birds’ gallery, a panorama on ‘Life through the Ages’, a 3D theatre, earthquake simulator and a planetarium that is, these days, showcasing Back to the Moon for Good. Relayed on a screen with 23m diametre (regular cinema screen is 35 mm), it is a hypnotic journey into space; clearly, the most memorable experience.

On the cards are a refurbished dinosaur gallery and an all-new innovation hub. Rajesh Grover, director, PGSC, says the dinosaur gallery will ride on better technology. “The ones that we have are based on obsolete technology with the movement unnatural. We are now getting finer technique that will focus on nitty-gritty such as the blinking of eyes and tail movement,” he says and adds that the gallery of innovation will stress on curriculum-based experiments. Like adulteration of milk. “Science is, after all, not just for students, but for the society as well,” he says. Probably that is why, at the Science City, science doesn’t just remain a wonder, it becomes a reality.