Neuroart Contest awards three different projects
The first edition of the Neuroart Contest, offered by the University of Barcelona, through the Institute of Neurosciences and with the support of the Scientific Culture and Innovation Unit, has its winners already. A total of three prizes were awarded: one to the students of 1st ESO (secondary education), one for the students of second year, and another for third and fourth year high school students. The projects, very different one from the other, were assessed according to its artistic aspects and the scientific rigour of the content.
The first edition of the Neuroart Contest, offered by the University of Barcelona, through the Institute of Neurosciences and with the support of the Scientific Culture and Innovation Unit, has its winners already. A total of three prizes were awarded: one to the students of 1st ESO (secondary education), one for the students of second year, and another for third and fourth year high school students. The projects, very different one from the other, were assessed according to its artistic aspects and the scientific rigour of the content.
More than a hundred students took part in the contest. They were coming from nine schools from around Catalonia, distributed in twenty-four groups. The students presented their projects on Friday, June 8, in the Faculty of Fine Arts, during the final day of the contest. All groups explained the neuroscientific conept of their project and answered the questions by the jury, formed by researchers of the University of Barcelona, experts on neurosciences, art and education.
The organizers of the contest value the experience positively. They highlight that the merge between neuroscience and art worked out fine and they reached the objective of the course: high school students to show, through artistic representations, their knowledge on the structure, functions, and plasticity of the nervous system. The second edition of the Neuroart Contest is already being worked on.
Awarded projects and students
Mustafà Azarfane, Joan Castillo, Lídia Cieza, Nil Ferrando and Santi Gallego, from IES Alt Foix in Sant Martí Sarroca (Alt Penedès), were awarded the Prize to the best project by 1st year high school students, for their work Activació neuronal, which shows a motor neuron and its functioning through electrical impulse. The award was an anatomical model of a human brain.
The project Sense títol got the Prize to the best project by 2nd year high school students. Its authors, Julia Alves, Marcela Cabrera, Marboré Cabezas, Ailin Bacca, Elias Ouled and Yerard Hernández, students in IES Juan Manuel Zafra (Barcelona), said their project was very visual and was not aimed to make refernces to any brain-related disease, but to observe the neural connections when carrying out different activities. The classroom of the awarded students received tickets to join a workshop in the Chocolate Museum of Barcelona.
The Prize to the best project by 3rd and 4th year high school students was given to the students Àlex Boncompte, Kora Escolà and Ainhoa Noreña, from IES Ribera del Sió (Agramunt, Urgell), for their work Manipulació, which, using the ready-made technique, shows how the brain can be easily controlled by external factors without our permission. It tries to protect itself from external manipulation, jailed. The strength our mind needs to avoid this situation creates a wear-out which is reflected in the damaging of the cage. The awardees received an anatomic model of a human brain and tickets to visit Cosmocaixa for all the students in the classroom.
An exhibition gathering all projects in the finals
All the presented projects, those that were awarded and those that didnʼt receive any award, are exhibited in the Faculty of Fine Arts in an exhibition that can be visited from June 11 to June 22, from Monday to Friday, 12 noon to 2 p.m., and Monday and Wednesday from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
The end of a process that lasted all year
In the first phase, several researchers from the Institute of Neurosciences gave lectures in the participating centers so that the students could understand more about how the nervous system works and what its structure is like. After this session, each school, in groups of six people maximum, had to work on artistic representations of those concepts, and had to choose a group to represent the classroom in the final session.