Children's Science Congress is targeted to spread the concept of the method of science among the children through 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 subtheme 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, CSC programme is not only for the school going children but is also open for 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 person with fair knowledge of dealing with children and method of science is considered eligible to guide the children, but should not be a direct relative of any of the children.

The exercises of project activities, as a thumb rule, encourage 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 (as in figure).

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 basis 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.