A total of 451 students participated in the “One Day as a Scientist” at CSIR-Central Salt and Marine Chemical Research (CSIR-CSMCRI), Bhavnagar. These students came from all over Gujarat state (Ahmadabad, Amreli, Anand, Bharuch, Bhavnagar, Devbhumi Dwarka, Jamnagar, Kachchh, Mahesana, Rajkot, Surat, Vadodara, and Valsad districts), and a few students also came from Rajasthan (Dungarpur). This programme was also participated in by a large number of students from the Bhavnagar rural areas.
The One Day As a Scientist programme was focused on laboratory visits, popular science lectures, hands-on experiments, discussion and interaction with scientists, fun activities, and a quiz. During this programme, popular science talks were focused on the core area of research activities of the institute (salt and marine chemicals, seaweed cultivation and utilisation, reverse osmosis, utilisation of sophisticated instruments (SEM and TEM), tissue culture, etc.).
School students had seen the general-purpose instruments as well as sophisticated instruments during a laboratory visit. Demonstration and use of different instruments, like analytical weighing balance, centrifuge, rotary evaporator, microscopy, spectrophotometer, pH meter, EC meter, gas adsorption instrument, sonicator, fume hood, column chromatography, etc. During hands-on training and experiments, students learned the different reactions, like acid–base neutralisation, using natural indicators (turmeric powder and hibiscus flower), precipitation reaction (double displacement), complex formation reactions, reaction of acids with metals to evolve hydrogen, and chemical chameleon reaction to understand the redox changes.
Students got trained and aware of the purification process by adsorption techniques (adsorption of industrial dyes with activated charcoal). Furthermore, school students prepared the microscopic slides and took the observation with different microalgal species, slide preparation of hibiscus pollen grains, isolated the DNA extraction from banana pulp, fabricated the flat-sheet PVDF membrane by Non-solvent Induced Phase Separation (NIPS), separated two immiscible liquids using a separating funnel, applying the principle of density and solubility differences.
Students also did the chemical chameleon experiment, highlighting the colour changes of Potassium Permanganate (KMnO?) at different oxidation states; the elephant toothpaste experiment, illustrating the reduction of KMnO? and the evolution of oxygen gas. Students got hands-on experience of streaking bacteria on agar plates, staining bacterial slides, and how to differentiate them based on their colour by using a microscope.
Demonstrations were also made for oxygen separation from air, separation of carbon dioxide and other flue gases, preparation of molecular sieves, and separation of gases using molecular sieves. Students are also seen in the in-house facilities of seaweed and micro-algae.
