Noor competition: Art and science meet to expand boundaries of knowledge
The president of the Iranian Association for Popularization of Science (IAPS), referring to the opportunity of integrating art with scientific experiments in Noor school student competition, said “Art can serve science and these two are wings which unfurl to expand the boundaries of knowledge.”
MSTF Media reports:
In regard to holding scientific competitions among students, Akram Ghadimi, the president of the Iranian Association for Popularization of Science (IAPS), said: “In order to make a one-minute video clip, students must have a lot of studies, and therefore such competitions are deemed to be an incentive for students to broaden their scientific knowledge.”
Stating that students’ participation in such competitions would help them move beyond books, Ghadimi stressed: “These competitions create an educational atmosphere for students not to solely memorize their lessons but to truly learn them.”
“If students had had group work experience with their friends in the past, they could have had this experience with their families now. If they can have cooperation with their close friends in a situation, they will have this flair effectively developed not only in their education but also in their lifestyle,” the president of IAPS continued.
She pointed out that if a student engages in a teamwork with a feeling of cooperation and empathy, fruitful results will be produced. “Such cooperation will actually bring with it a practical educational method, hence student’s growth. Teamwork bears more positive fruits than individual work. When the family participate in a scientific competition, they will have good effects on the social, intellectual, and scientific behavior of the student, too.”
Ghadimi considered students’ staying out of classroom-oriented and book-based milieu as a positive dimension for Noor school competition, saying: “The fact that students enter into an interactive atmosphere is the strength of Noor school student competition. Nothing is quite perfect; however, strengths reduce weaknesses and help such competitive events be more effective than previous years. A pitfall for this competition is that it must be publicized more widely, especially during the current situation of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“We must seek the growth of Islamic societies in this competition; it is a positive trend and causes the spread of scientific thinking among students in the Islamic countries. It also fosters cooperation and synergy among countries,” she said.
She stated that our focus should not be on elitism and added: “We should focus on education for all strata of society, especially school students. Holding this competition should promote scientific thinking and create interest among individuals. We also need to create enthusiasm for students in form of awards and prizes.”
“Utilizing the capacity of art to express science is extremely good. When a student uses art, the scientific work stays in their mind, hence a lasting effect. Art can serve science and these two are wings which unfurl to expand the boundaries of knowledge,” Ghadimi said.
The deadline for submitting works to the 4th round of Noor competition, in recognition of Professor Omar Yaghi, the 2015 Mustafa
Prize laureate, expired in August 2020. In this round, students were to create 60-second scientific video clips of their conducting experiments in various fields of materials and energy.
