Under the guidance from the Western University, California, the specially
abled children of the Different Art Centre at the Magic Planet in Trivandrum
gets a hands-on start on scientific research activities. The project named as
“Scientia” is a joint venture by Magic Planet and the Western University.
Scientia aims at promoting curiosity amongst children on scientific subjects and
take them to international levels. Research works completed by the children will
be handed over to Western University. Western University will assist to present
the research results at international science forums.
As Kerala is going through a lockdown period due to COVID pandemic, the
participating children would be working on their tasks from home. As a first
phase, micro laboratories will be setup at their homes, which will be
transformed later at a larger scale at the Different Art Centre campus soon as
the centre re-opens. This laboratory will be armed to handle the multitude of
experiments by the children.
A Research supervisory panel comprising of Dr. Finosh Thankam, Faculty at the
Western University, Fr. Vincent Perepadan, Shyla Thomas and Divya has been
formed. This panel will be evaluating the children’s progress on each task on
periodic basis.
Dr. Mohammed Asheel, Executive Director of the Kerala Social Security Mission
formally inaugurated the research project ‘Scientia’ in a zoom meeting conducted
on Tuesday, 07 July 2020. The meeting was attended by more than 65 children from
the Different Art Centre.
Dr. Finosh Thankam gave explanatory guidelines to the participants. The
three-hour long meeting had an active participation from the children along with their parents. Gopinath Muthukad, Executive Director of the Magic Academy,
Mahesh Gupthan, Fr.Vincent Perepadan, Shyla Thomas, Chandrasenan Mithrumala, K.P.
Sivakumar, Dr.Akhila S. Nair and Divya T also joined the active online discussion.