Queen Mira Int’l School, Madurai, to enrich 200 students from govt, corpn, pvt schools with exposure visit to ISRO HC judges, police officers, Kollywood celebrities meet and greet school children
Chennai, Feb 12:
As part of its social initiative, the Queen Mira International School (QMIS), Madurai, is taking around 200 studen ts, majority of them are from Corporation and Government schools, onan educational tour to the Indian Space Re search Organisation (ISRO).
To impart practical scientific knowledge to the middle schoolchildren, QMIS, along with a group of its own stu dents, is taking those from the underprivileged sections to ISRO’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) at Srih arikota in the Tirupati district of Andhra Pradesh.
The nearly 200-member team, while on its way to Sriharikota, made a stopover in Chennai on Feb 12, where Jus tices J Nisha Banu and M S Ramesh, the judges of Madras High Court, greeted them. Senior police officers R Thir unavukkarasu, IPS, and A Myilvaganan, lyricist Madhan Karky, pianist Anil Srinivasan of Rhapsody Music Found ation and music composer Jerard Felix also joined the judges in providing the students a warm send-off.
According to Chairman Dr C Chandran, QMIS, in association with M.S. Chellamuthu Trust and Research Founda tion led by well-known psychiatrist Dr C Ramasubramanian, has, as part of executing its social responsibility, dec ided to provide technical exposure to the disadvantaged students on Space technology. “Hence, we selected sk illed students from government-run schools for the ISRO tour through the inter-school competitions, called ‘The Little Emperors’ (TLE), conducted for them a couple of months ago, “he said.
Managing Director Mr Abinath Chandran said the science tour for about 200 children has been arrangedunder the guidance of Dr R Thiruchenthuran, founder-president of Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Vision 2020, and upon obtain ingdue approvalfrom the ISRO administration and Madurai Corporationand other schoolsconcerned. “We are th e first private educational institution in the State to take the students of Corporation, Government, Governmen t-aided and other private schools to the Spaceport of India,” he stated.
All these middle school students who would embark on an ambitious journey are the winners of TLE – Season 8′ hosted by Queen Mira in the last week of November 2022. Inspired by the ISRO Deputy Director R Venkatram an, who is on the school’s advisory board, the school had ‘Space Exploration’ as the theme for the
mega event.
The eighth edition of TLE received an overwhelming response from the schools in Madurai and neighbouring dis tricts. About 40 events including ‘Kural Koorum Kadhaigal’, doodle art, arcimboldo, junior journalist and mime were conducted for various sections from pre-primary to secondary graders.
Academic Director Ms Sujatha Guptan said, the week-long competitions saw the participation of about 6,000 students from over 200 schools, including corporation, government and aided schools, in seven districts – Madu rai, Theni, Sivagangai, Dindigul, Virudhunagar, Ramanathapuram and Tenkasi.
Queen Mira is also the first school in this part of the State to have invited government, aided and corporation sch ools for the inter-school event and conducted competitions for them exclusively.
As a precursor to the ISRO trip, the school released a lyrical video titled “Vanatha Vellaporom’, penned by Madh an Karky to the music scored by Jerard Felix, on its campus on the 13th of January with both the Kollywood pers onalities as chief guests. It is a ‘Space Anthem’ created as a tribute to ISRO andto inspire and motivate schoolchil dren to become space scientists in future. The ‘Space Anthem’ was formally launched in the presence of special guests during the send-off ceremony in Chennai on Sunday.
The field visit to the government Spaceport will further ignite the participating students’ passion to pursue hig her studies and careers in Astronomy and Space Science and help develop an interest in Space Technology.
The children who the Queen Mira International School is taking for the ISRO exposure visit include those from t he Madurai Corporation schools in Krishnapuram Colony and Sundararajapuram and Ponmudiyar and Navalar S omasundara Bharathiar Corporation higher secondary schools among others.
