Maintenance of equipment poor, say visitors

Many educational parks in the city, which seek to give children a good understanding of daily-use scientific concepts, remain underutilised for want of patronage.

The science parks at Government Museum, Egmore, and the Periyar Science and Technology Centre, Kotturpuram, are in invitingly quiet, verdant environs. There is no entry fee to visit the parks as the fee is only to the museum and the science exhibition in the premises. But few visitors make an attempt to understand the scientific concept behind the play equipment.

S.Murali and his wife Mohana, who occasionally bring their two children to spend the Sunday in the museum, said they did not read the descriptive plates. “The equipment evidently has educational value, but since the park and the equipment are poorly maintained and there is no one to explain the exhibits to us,” Ms. Mohana said.

According to K. Sekar, curator of the children's museum, a person is posted in the park to tell visitors about each of the installed equipment. But visitors say only security staff are present on Sundays and holidays.

At the park in Kotturpuram, the section featuring the principle of pulley and levers is in disuse. The unkempt, bushy area sports a few description plates but with graffiti on them. An official at the Science and Technology Centre said that the government had proposed to renovate the park.

M. Bharani Kumar said, “I used to bring my elder son several years ago. He enjoyed playing here. Now I bring the younger one. A little care and even trying to find ways to generate revenue, like increasing the price of the tickets would help to maintain the park.” Pointing to a new installation, he said, “Many of these equipment have been added now and there are no instruction plates. My son enjoys playing on them but unless he asks questions I don't explain it to him.”

The science parks were created by A.S. Padmanabhan and S. Krishnan, who “decided to put our education to use by introducing the concept of learning science through play in 1993. It has been a difficult journey so far as very few educational institutions evince interest in setting up such parks,” says Mr. Padmanabhan.

The two were classmates in an engineering college in Bangalore and designed play equipment to explain concepts such as laws of motion, movement of light and sound, gravitation, centrifugal and centripetal force.

Their efforts paid off in Chennai when they received the contract to set up a science park in the museum in Egmore. It was inaugurated in 2001 by the then President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. Since then, the equipment has been maintained by the company, says Mr. Sekar.

In the park in Egmore, the instruction plates are in English unlike in Kotturpuram where both English and Tamil translations are available. “The explanation plates are expensive. We have been trying to set up more such parks in the city for the last decade but without success. Though there have been requests for play equipment, science parks are not popular,” Mr. Padmanabhan said. In Chennai, only two schools – The School, KFI, Adyar and Kendriya Vidyalaya, Avadi – have science parks. Such parks have been installed in NCERT Delhi, and in terraces of some schools Gujarat, Allahabad and Delhi, according to him.