Science fest@Notre Dame

(L-R) Father Bakul S Rozario CSC, Father R.W. Timm CSC, Father Bilchist, FAther BEnjamin COSTA csc, Rev. Father J.S. Malloy at the science festival while a student speaks

The festival, co-sponsored by the Standard Chartered Bank (BD) Ltd. and Partex Group,

have gained immense popularity among the school-goers over the last two years. This year some notable institutions like Scholastica, the Aga Khan School, Viqarunisa Noon School & College, Holy Cross School & College, Siddheshwari College, St. Joseph School & College, St. Gregory School, St. Francis Xavier School participated in the events.

The inaugural ceremony took place on February 10 and the chief guest was Rev. Fr. Edward A. Malloy. CSC, the president of Notre Dame University. The festival had an impressive line-up of events like the science project competition, web page designing contest, inter-college general knowledge competition, Physics Olympiad, digital poster designing contest, extempore speech competition, Maths Olympiad and essay competition.

On the second day of the festival, various competitions like debate and extempore speech competition among the schools took place along with the science projects display. On February 18, the qualifying round and the semifinals of the 15th general knowledge competition took place at the college premises. Eight teams out of the sixteen semifinalists made it to the finals, which took place on the last day of the event. The 'quiz-masters' of the final round were Prof. Rafiqun Nabi for arts & culture, Niaz Morshed for sports, Dr. Daleem Chandra Barman for current affairs, Dr. Kaykobad for information & communications technology and Aksadul Alam for history. The 'Notre Dame Gold' team won the event and Faizul Azim Kibria was adjudged the best participant.

The Notre Dame Science Club also organised the first-ever Physics Olympiad this year. Around 300 students from reputed city schools and institutes took part in the Olympiad. The Maths Olympiad had over 290 college students and about 100 school students as participants.

"The Notre Dame Science Club needs to be complimented for their efforts to promote awareness and interest in the fields of science and mathematics among the children of the city," said Dr. Kaykobad.

Over 600 students participated in the science project competition. Professor Shamima Yasmin Chowdhury, Sinha Abu Khalid, Gazi Azmal, SM Arif, Sanjit Kumar Guha were, among other, judges for the event.

The Notre Dame College won the debate competition while 'the extempore speech' drew a huge audience even though the event only had 25 participants.

Professor Rafiqun Nabi was the judge for the digital poster contest, where more than 80 participants submitted their digital posters. The essays for the essay competition were judged by the faculty members of Viqarunisa Noon School and College and the Notre Dame College.

The prize-giving ceremony for all the events, would be held on March 5.