In India, as in many countries, the main focus in science classrooms is on exams rather than musing on the fascinating concepts and understanding of the world that science offers. This can mean that students lose interest in studying science -a problem that is further hampered where there is a lack of facilities, expertise or mentors. We started the 'Science is fun' outreach programme to address these problems. The 15-person team, led by undergraduate and research scientists, conducted four workshops with underprivileged children in Indian primary and secondary schools during December 2014 and January 2015. The workshops explored basic science concepts, reinforced by hands-on experiments using readily available materials. They were generally successful, with students keen to participate and motivated to learn more after the workshops. We were also pleasantly surprised to see students engaging with new concepts and not hesitating to participate in the discussions. We tried to ensure teachers were central to the activities, and also designed the experiments to be easily repeatable so that teachers could incorporate them into their own lessons once the workshops were over. In this article, we describe three of our successful activities: building a periscope and a digital microscope, and two experiments based on the physical gas laws. All are cheap and easy to perform, yet reveal interesting scientific principles. Each activity takes about an hour.

翻译：在印度,与许多国家一样,科学教室的主要重点是考试,而不是沉思科学给世界带来的迷人概念和理解。这意味着学生对科学研究失去兴趣,这个问题在缺乏设施、专门知识或导师的地方进一步受到阻碍。我们启动了“科学是有趣的”外联方案来解决这些问题。由本科生和研究科学家牵头的15人团队于2014年12月和2015年1月在印度中小学为贫困儿童举办了4次讲习班。讲习班探索了基础科学概念,利用随时可得的材料进行亲手实验,强化了这些概念。他们一般很成功,学生渴望参加并积极学习,在讲习班结束后学习更多。我们同样感到惊讶的是,学生们使用新概念,而不是犹豫不决地参加讨论。我们试图确保教师是这些活动的核心,还设计了实验容易重复,以便教师在讲习班结束后可以将其纳入自己的课程中。在文章中描述了我们成功的三项活动:建立一个透视镜和数字显微镜,以及两个基于物理气体法的实验,每个时时时时时时时光光光光。所有活动都是廉价的。