Recerkids brings some UB researches closer to 250 primary school students

The 1st Recerkids Congress of Scientific Research for Children will take place at the Faculty of Biology.
The 1st Recerkids Congress of Scientific Research for Children will take place at the Faculty of Biology.
Research
(15/02/2017)

This Thursday, February 16, the 1st Recerkids Congress of Scientific Research for Children will take place at the Aula Magna of the Faculty of Biology. This meeting concludes the first edition of an educational program which has involved around five thousand students of 5th and 6th grade in primary schools from all Catalonia. In Recekids, organized by the General Direction of Research of the Generalitat de Catalunya and Eduxarxa with the support of the University of Barcelona, the young students experimented what research is, how a research process works and what the daily life of a scientist is like.

The 1st Recerkids Congress of Scientific Research for Children will take place at the Faculty of Biology.
The 1st Recerkids Congress of Scientific Research for Children will take place at the Faculty of Biology.
Research
15/02/2017

This Thursday, February 16, the 1st Recerkids Congress of Scientific Research for Children will take place at the Aula Magna of the Faculty of Biology. This meeting concludes the first edition of an educational program which has involved around five thousand students of 5th and 6th grade in primary schools from all Catalonia. In Recekids, organized by the General Direction of Research of the Generalitat de Catalunya and Eduxarxa with the support of the University of Barcelona, the young students experimented what research is, how a research process works and what the daily life of a scientist is like.

The first eleven schools that registered in the program Recerkids, represented with a total of two hundred students, will show the results of their research, sharing the topic of water, at the Faculty of Biology in front of an expert committee. Apart from exhibiting eleven scientific posters, the students will also join several workshops in which they will conduct experiments related to water, four of them are dynamized by researchers of the Water Research Institute (IdRA) of the University of Barcelona.

The expert committee to assess the scientific posters made by the students is formed by M. Carme Llasat, from the Faculty of Physics of the UB; Javier Martín-Vide, from the Faculty of Geography and History; Narcís Prat, from the Faculty of Biology; Roser Rubio, from the Faculty of Chemistry, and Pablo Rodríguez, PhD student at the Institute of Marine Sciences.


UB researchers organize four workshops

Roser Marsal Aguilera, professor from the Department of History and Archaeology and researcher at IdRA, will lead workshop to get into the world of archaeology and discover the relation between human beings and water over history.

Humbert Salvadó, professor of Zoology and IdRA researcher, will give an initiation practical session to the discovery of the microscopic world to observe and learn how to differentiate microorganisms present in the water but invisible to our eyes. The workshop aims to make students understand the existence of microorganisms and their relation with pollution.

Pau Fortuño and Iraima Verkaik, members of the research group Freshwater Ecology and Management (FEM) of the Faculty of Biology, will show participants how to assess the ecological status of a river with the help of the app Riu.net. The workshop also aims to reflect on the main human activities that cause degradation of aquatic ecosystems and understand the importance of citizen science.

The researchers from the Group of Analysis of Adverse Meteorological Situations (GAMA) Montserrat Llasat and Maria Cortès will coordinate the workshop “Mesurem la pluja!”, which aims to work on concepts related to rain, learn how to use tools for the measurement of precipitations and analyze its data and discover how society can contribute to the  knowledge of natural risks. With the App FloodUp they will show a case of floods with collected photographs, and students will learn to build a rain gauge with a bottle of water.


Promoting scientific vocations

Organized by the General Direction of Research of the Generalitat de Catalunya and Eduxarxa, Recerkids aims to encourage scientific vocations among young generations. Water is the jointing topic of all researches in this first edition of the program, which has been distributed in three parts: people and water, animals and water, and the mysteries of water. During all this process, the schools could accompany a team of experts in science education, apart from having a research journal for the students and a facilitator guide for the program.