34th Annual Report (2021-22)

88 PUBLIC OUTREACH HIGHLIGHTS The pandemic has opened a plethora of ways to combine virtual and physical experiences. The IUCAA Scipop teamwas able to reach out to a maximum number of students from all over the world and introduce them to the mysteries of the universe virtually. The team organised various interesting sessions and interactive workshops for students and teachers as well as the general public. With the help of innovative teaching aids and technology, various eventsweremade accessible to everyone. IUCAA SciPOP arranged a live webcast of Lunar Occultation of Mars on its YouTube channel with more than 8000 attendees. Mr Ayan Saha from Tripura joined to demonstrate the Immersion (Ingress) of Mars and a team of Amateur Astronomers from Jyotirvidya Parisanstha, Pune, demonstrated the Emersion (Egress) of the occultation. The Programbeganwith an introduction and description of the event by Mr.Samir Dhurde in 4 languages viz. English, Hindi, Marathi and Bengali. The program was hosted by Mr Atharva Pathak. Mr Tushar Purohit conducted a virtual sky session inHindi. Lunar Occultation – 17 April 2021 SPECIAL EVENTS A series of online interactions in Marathi, specially designed for ZP schools in and around the Pune district, was introduced in September 2021, in coordination with the ZPEducationOffice. In the series, every Saturday had a session dedicated to different audience groups based on s u r r o u n d i n g o b j e c t s a n d phenomena. A session on "Fire and Earth", coordinated and executed by Shivani Pethe and Swanand Athlye as a part of this special series on the 5 elements of the universe or the panchamahabhutas on the 1st of January concluding the series. This series also covered various sessions on Science Toys/ Experiments, Demonstrations, Basic astronomy and teachers' training programmes. A special series for Zilla Parishad (ZP) schools, Pune The programme was initiated by Sonal Thorve and coordinated by Rupesh Labade with Shivani Pethe, Atharva Pathak and Tushar Purohit who conducted the various sessions. As an extension to this, the Vidnyan Adhyapak Sangh Pune, VASP, initiated in the year 2021 was executed successfully. Teachers under this program were divided into groups for different subjects like maths, chemistry, physics, biology and environmental science. They were motivated to design and develop new models, experiments and toys that would further be documented and featured on IUCAA youtube channel on the occasion of science day. This program was conceptualized and effectively executed by Sonal Thorve, Samir Dhurde, Rupesh Labade, Shivani Pethe and Swanand Athlye.