Guwahati: Students from a school in US Saturday interacted with their peers from a school in Assam’s Nagaon district as part of an effort to promote science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education in India.
Six juniors and seniors from West Fargo High School in North Dakota in US, taking up the unique and ambitious effort to promote science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in India, interacted with the students of Nagaon Bengali Girls’ High School, North Dakota State University’s Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Dr Achintya Bezbaruah told PTI from USA.
Kick-starting their programme on Saturday, the West Fargo team decided to work with the Indian school because it is exclusively a girls’ school and weaning female students to STEM is a challenge across the globe including in the US, said the noted environmentalist hailing from Assam.
The West Fargo team made a presentation on STEM education which was followed by interactions with the Nagaon students with their teacher Nasset highlighting the importance of STEM and how it can help every student to better prepare for the challenges faced in everyday life.
The team demonstrated their robot that “plays basketball and soccer” and went on to describe the intricate parts of the robot.
The Nagaon team of 30 students led by subject teacher Aparna Bhattacharjee was very excited to be involved in this programme and interacted with the US students in both Assamese and English.
The West Fargo team members included Rit Bezbaruah, Grace Bailey, Cole Amundson, Bailey Aaneson, Dustin Steedsmen, Andrew Vetter, and advisor Brent Nasset, he said, adding, Assam-born Rit was also the interpreter translating from English to Assamese and Assamese to English during the interaction.
Last year a ten-member team from the Nagaon school had presented their water-related research titled “Iron removal from water collected from tube wells using charcoal” at the WateRediscover International Teleconference organised by North Dakota State University where teams from Tezpur in Assam, Uganda, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, and the United States also participated.
The team partnering with the Nagaon School will send them components of a robot and help them build it over the academic year through on-line video meetings, Bezbaruah said.
“The timing for the program could not have come at a better time than this weekend for the Indian school. The country is celebrating its successful Mars Orbiter Mission and has become a member of the exclusive group of counties (US, Europe, and Russia) who are successful in Mars missions. India is also the first Asian country to achieve this feat. West Fargo students congratulated their Indian peers on Indian’s successful mission to the Mars”, Bezbaruah said.
Members of the West Fargo Robotics Team recently formed a group called STEMucate to promote STEM education in North Dakota and across the globe.(PTI)