NCSC National Level Science Project Competitions 2023

NCSC National Level Science Project Competitions 2023: The seeds of the program of children’s science congress (CSC), in the way of an exercise to carry out small research activities at micro-level, were planned in Madhya Pradesh by an NGO called Gwalior Science Center.

Andhra Pradesh NCSC News: AP State Science and Technology Council member and secretary said the National Children’s Science Congress state level competitions will be held in January.

District level competitions will end by December, A total of 130 projects at the rate of 10 from each district will be selected for the state competitions. Secretary said that 17 projects selected at the state level would be sent to the national level.

It was later adopted by National Council for Science and Technology Communication (NCSTC), Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India for carrying out national-level activities through NCSTC-Network (a network of Non-Government and Government organizations working in the field of science popularization) as a national organizer. National level Competition at Chandigarh University, Mohali, Chandigarh as per schedule

It was a time when many of the country’s crusaders of science communication were experienced with massive science communication exercise of Bharat Jana BigyanJatha and Bharat Jana Gyan Bigyan Jatha. It was felt that the large scale activities for developing science awareness among the masses are to be continued as a regular activity.

So, this programme was launched nationwide in 1993, under nomenclature National Children’s Science Congress (NCSC), with an expectation that it would generate scientific temperament among the teachers and students, and spread among the various stakeholders of the society. The programme of NCSC has been fruitfully conducted for the last 22 years.

NCSC National Level Science Project Competitions: National Children’s Science Congress (NCSC): An ideal and innovative programme for children to Inspire, Empower and Expand their Minds to World !. National Children’s Science Congress (NCSC) is a nationwide Science Communication programme started in the year 1993.

It is a programme of the National Council for Science and Technology Communication (NCSTC), Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi.

It is a forum child of the age-group of 10-17 years, both from the formal school system as well as from out of school, to exhibit their creativity and innovativeness and more particularly their ability to solve a societal problem experienced locally used by the method of science.

Online registration through NCSC Web-portal https://ncsc-india.in/ is going on. to avoid the complications in future, please direct your district coordinators to take care and promote the children group those are participating in the NCSC to log in the web-portal and register themselves also support them.

Some of the children groups have already registered themselves. Please instruct the district coordinator to check the groups and approve the same in their respective district by login district coordinators id and password. the User ID and password of each District Coordinators have already been provided to each state Coordinators in the last year.

District Coordinator should upload the district events in the event menu so that the information shall go to the registered participants in time. Similarly, each state coordinator must upload the State events in their menu by login the website.

Note: if any registered (group) participants shall miss or not participate in the district or State level event of CSC without having proper information on the website, the respective District and State Coordinator will be responsible for any complications or Query raised. This has already been informed to all PIs of NCSC during the Project presentation meeting.

All MEOs, HMs of Govt & Z P. Schools, SOs of KGBVS, Principals of Model Schools & Correspondents of private schools are hereby informed to prepare projects for  NCSC Competitions. District Level Children Science Congress will be held as per the schedule. Actual Date and venue communicated shortly.

NCSC Schedule:

1. Selection of subjects for activity and registration of teams: On Going!
2. Working on the projects : Next 2-3 months
3. District Level Congress : By December 20
4. State Level Congress: By January 6 to 10 (Please go through the state-level event)
5. National Level Congress : National Children’s Science Congress: by January Last week.
6. Kishor VaigyaniK Sammelan: To be announced (Venue will be announced shortly)

Different levels of Congress: National Children‘s Science Congress is organized in three levels where the child scientists and their project works are screened under common evaluation criteria.

The evaluation of the project is done for its innovativeness, simplicity and practicality. On the basis of the merit of the project is selected for the next level. The three levels are as follows:

• Block /district level Science Project Competitions
• State level Science Project Competitions
• National level Science Project Competitions

The District/Block level Congress is the first level in which projects compete with one another and are screened for presentation at the State level Congress, which is the second level.

Projects as per State-wise quota (indicated at Annexure- I) are selected from the State level for the Grand Finale – the National Children‘s Science Congress. Seven to eight lakh child scientists participate at various levels from the States and the Union Territories.

NCSC Projects Competitions Schedule:
District Level: In December (Different dates to be announced in Various Districts)
State Level: In January
National Level: In January

National Children Science Congress is going to hold a National level Competition at any state. The venue will be announced. 

NCSC Objectives: Motivate and engage the children for inquiry based learning exercise:

• To learn and understand ecology, economy and society and their inter-relationships.
• To apply scientific understanding in day-to-day decision-making
• To design and develop approach /solution for tapping potentiality and overcoming the gaps and challenges
• To take Initiatives for personal reflection* and transformation to community and society
• *means an opportunity to reconsider events, thoughts and feelings from a fresh perspective

National Children’s Science Congress (NCSC): The National Children’s Science Congress (NCSC) is flagship programme organised nationally every year from December 27-31. It is forum for 10-17 years age children from urban/ rural area of different state.

NCSC programme is not necessarily a school-based programme but it is open to all non-formal systems of education besides out of school and disabled children. NCSC programme is not only limited to Government, Private and Public school but also extended to Kendriya Vidhyalaya Sangathan and Navodaya Vidhyalaya Samiti.

All over the country about a million children take part in this unique event every year, from which about 650 projects come to national level. This programme is become popular in ASEAN countries with their participation by delegates.

NCSC programme has covered the topics like Environment, Nutrition, Clean-up India, Water Resources, Biodiversity, Land Resources, Energy, Weather and Climate during its 23 years of great success and also grow up with innovative ideas of Child scientist through their innovative Project work on a variety of highly relevant local issues of above topics.

NCSC is a National Children‘s Science Congress is targeted to spread the concept of the method of science among the children their project activities adopting the principle of learning through doing‘.

The mandate of participation is that, the children will carry out a project on a particular topic in relation to theme and sub-theme decided for the year. The study is to be carried out in the neighbourhood of the children where they live.

For this, the students form a group with their like-minded friends/ classmates and the study is carried out under the supervision of a guide.

It is noteworthy that, NCSC programme is not only for the school going children but is also open fort the children outside the formal boundary of schools, in the age group of 10 to 17 years (where 10 to 14 years is considered as junior group and 14 + to 17 years as senior group).

Further, it is not mandatory that a guide must be a school teacher; any persons with fair knowledge of dealing with children and method of science are considered eligible to guide the children, but should not be direct relative of any of the children.

The exercise of project activities, as thumb rule, encourages the children to explore, think, serve and wonder. It is capable to imbibe the following temperament/quality/skill of the children:

• Observation
• Making measurement
• Making comparison and contrasts,
• Classification,
• Estimation,
• Prediction,
• Interpretation,
• Critical thinking,
• Creative thinking,
• Drawing conclusion and
• Cooperative skill

Therefore it is ideally expected that any group of children will undertake a project work with a perspective of continuous effort of questioning and experimentation.

Here, observation incorporates anything the children observe in their daily life in the locality, in relation to the theme defined for the year. The observation should be followed by relevant questioning such as What? Where? When? Why? How? Whom?.

In the search for finding out the answer to the question (s) one is required to review different literature concerning the issues in the study. Review of such literature basically and ideally helps in framing the steps towards the study and experimentation.

In the process, one may also discuss with experts of the relevant fields to get information and advice. Initiatives for such activities must be encouraged by the guide associated with the project.

These steps will help to frame assumption/ hypothesis. Hypothesis is an assumption of some cause and its impact on the basic of observation, information collected from different literature and emerged from discussion with experts.

After these phases, actual study through survey or experimentation or survey followed by experimentation would start. In the case of survey-based work, identification of respondent, their unit of observation, sample coverage, design of survey in relation to designing of interview schedule or questionnaire is supposed to be the most critical steps.

Such decisions may vary with the issues of study. On the other hand, in case of experimentation, setting the objective of experimentation, defining different parameters, identification of ideal instruments, framing of procedures/ steps and control along with repetitive observation of the experiments are critical decisions, which will determine the path towards the result.

Again in relation to issues of study, such experiment may be either laboratory experiments or field experiments. It is expected that in course of time, the children’s project will bring in lots of new information about problems and prospects of their locality along with innovative ideas to address these issues.

Moreover, in the course of project work, the children may develop different new approaches of study along with the development of different instruments for their experiments.

Such tools/instruments may be developed with the material in their access/available to them nearby. Another expectation was that the outcome of different studies will be communicated among the local populace, which in turn, helps in generating scientific temperament among the general mass.

In a nutshell, the NCSC projects are simple, innovative, concerned with local issues related with day to day life and are carried out with very nominal cost, where the focus is more on logical interpretation and analysis of issues, and finding out pragmatic solutions of generic nature to the possible extent, and not merely confined to the study topic and corresponding model making.

Modalities of Participation Following are major steps involved for participations in the NCSC: A social movement along the lines of the Children‘s Science Congress should be visualized in order to promote discovery learning across the nation, and eventually throughout South Asia.

Frequently Asked Questions on National Level Science Project Competitions

Download the Model/Previous Application Form