The Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines) in Dhanbad, Jharkhand, will open its campus for meritorious school students once a week round the year to kindle a spirit of scientific acumen and curiosity.

“We are the first technical institute in Jharkhand to organise such a programme welcoming students to our campus round the year from tomorrow (Friday). The idea is to encourage students to imbibe scientific acumen at the school level,” said IIT (ISM) media and branding head Rajni Singh.

The institute will organise a lab visit programme for students of classes IX to XII from June 23 on each working Friday under the K-12 Outreach Programme during which students from across the state would be visiting the different facilities and labs of IIT (ISM), long wall gallery, seismological observatory as well as geological museum.

Singh said that they had sent Google forms to more than 100 schools so far and would be sending similar forms to other schools as well. They have received responses from around 10 schools so far.

“We emailed the forms to respective schools across Jharkhand and based on their feedback and selection of students we will be arranging the visit to our campus every Friday. The students have to be selected by the school and the upper limit (number of students) is 25,” said Singh.

The schools that will send their students to the IIT ISM on Friday are DAV Public School, Sindri, Dhanbad, and Swami Shraddhanand Higher Secondary School, Ranchi.

The initiative focuses on arousing the innovative approach, critical thinking, and problem-solving ability of students in accordance with the objective of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)," added Singh.

The institution is also hosting Jharkhand School Innovation Challenge (JH-SIC) 2023 virtually for the third year in succession.

”Altogether 17 school teams have so far registered for Jharkhand School Innovation Challenge (JH-SIC) 2023. The contest is virtually organised by Naresh Vashisht Centre for Tinkering and Innovation (NVCTI), IIT (ISM) with the aim of promoting innovation and creativity among school students of Jharkhand,” said Singh.

The contest is open for school students (classes VIII to XII) and registration began last week.