Sagara Science Forum: Where science sparks beyond the syllabus

Through hands-on camps and interactive sessions, the Sagara Science Forum is challenging rote learning and inspiring students to engage with science in new ways, writes Seshadri K S

"How many of you dislike biology?” asked Prof R Uma Shaanker while speaking to a group of high school students. Several hands went up; a struggle with dry facts and scientific names was a recurring theme. One student even admitted he hated biology simply because he could.

We were in Sagara as resource persons for a summer camp covering all branches of science. Famous for Jog Falls, the town has a long history of promoting science, and we were part of that lineage. At 10 am, the Sagara Science Centre was buzzing as parents dropped off their children. The laterite-stone building was pleasantly cool inside despite being partially complete. Our objective over the next two days was to show that biology is more than just diagrams and memorisation.

The Sagara Science Forum (SSF) is a not-for-profit initiative that has spent 15 years silently proliferating public understanding of science. Founded by mathematics teacher late H L Suryanarayana Rao, the SSF has evolved into a hub for experiential learning.

“In 2018, a guest lecture drew only four students; today, the camps run at full capacity”, said H S Jeevan, president of SSF. A former scientist at the Max-Planck Institute in Germany who returned to India to farm, Jeevan takes pride in sharing how the SSF has grown — from Rao’s spare room to a dedicated facility.

Prof Shaanker, a regular participant since the first lecture series 15 years ago, sees this as a vital intervention. “It is a systemic problem that school education is appalling. Imagination and creativity have taken a beating,” he said. “Children merely go through the mill. Any effort to alleviate this, even incrementally, should be welcome,” he added. Prof Shaanker was formerly at the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Bengaluru, where he ran the popular Friday Group lectures continuously for 35 years.

Children on a field visit during the camp.

Textbook pitfalls

The camps are intentionally disruptive. Using a photograph of a sunflower from a textbook, Prof Shaanker described how seed arrangements follow the Fibonacci sequence, a mathematical principle that has even inspired the arrangement of solar panels to maximise sunlight exposure. To show that graphs and tables have a place in biology too, students first played a game of ‘budding’ to illustrate population growth, and then simulated the spread of infections and plotted the numbers on the board.

When it was my turn, I asked students to identify amphibians on a slide showing a hippopotamus, a crocodile, a turtle and Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps. Relying on the rote definition “amphibians live on land and water”, most children incorrectly classified the hippo and crocodile as amphibians. In reality, amphibians are defined by their dual life stages (aquatic tadpoles and terrestrial adults). Such simple exercises reveal the extent of rote learning in science education today.

Children display the skeletons prepared by them at a summer camp on science organised by the Sagara Science Forum at the Science Centre in Sagara.

The ripple effect

While the SSF is a local initiative, its long-term impact is evident in transformed career trajectories. “I attended a one-day camp at SSF when Rao was active and it instilled a sense of curiosity in me,” said Vikas Patil, a former participant. “The camps helped me see the possibilities of pursuing science, which is often perceived as boring,” he added. After a brief stint at the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Patil cleared the civil services exams and is now a trainee officer in the Indian Defence Accounts Services.

In a parallel effort, Smriti Tiwari, now a Programme Manager at Socratus, a non-for-profit organisation working on environmental and climate issues, recalled how the now-defunct ‘Bioresources’ government-funded training programme during her school years was a turning point. “It was the first time I realised that Environmental Science was an option to study in Bengaluru,” she said, emphasising its influence on career choice.

“While the Indian Science Academies’ lecture series exists, shrinking resources are causing it to thin out. It is a pity, as it takes only one spark to ignite passion in smaller towns,” said Prof Shaanker.

With science funding declining globally, both Prof Shaanker and Dr Jeevan acknowledge that meeting the operational costs of such camps, especially in their formative years, remains challenging. So far, the SSF has managed to keep camps free or minimally priced, supported by grants and in-kind contributions from government and civil society.

By evening, it was time to leave. When invited to share a few words about the camp, the students returned to honesty. One boy, Avin, cheekily called out Prof Shaanker for repeatedly addressing him incorrectly as ‘Kevin’. Another student from a nearby village said he enjoyed the forest walk and admitted he had previously seen it only as a source of firewood. “I have realised that being a scientist means staying alert to everything around you,” the boy added.

Others asked unexpected questions, often putting us on the back foot and forcing us to admit the limits of our knowledge, and say, “We don’t know”. It was already dark when we left Sagara, but we left with the sense that a candle had been lit, and that would help dispel the darkness.

(The author is an ecologist and faculty member at ATREE)