A festival to defend scientific culture
The team of La UB Divulga works every day to provide society with the research that is carried out at the University of Barcelona. The Scientific Culture and Innovation Unit (UCC+i) of the UB works on this issue: promoting social interest in science and knowledge, growing citizensʼ scientific culture and to contribute to increase scientific vocations among youngsters. Apart from these tasks, there is a special date on their calendars: the Science Festival. This is the most intense day of the year for the UCC+i of the UB, since they gather -in the Historical Building- researchers from all knowledge areas to show the general public, in a communicative and fun way, the research carried out in the laboratory and their offices.
The team of La UB Divulga works every day to provide society with the research that is carried out at the University of Barcelona. The Scientific Culture and Innovation Unit (UCC+i) of the UB works on this issue: promoting social interest in science and knowledge, growing citizensʼ scientific culture and to contribute to increase scientific vocations among youngsters. Apart from these tasks, there is a special date on their calendars: the Science Festival. This is the most intense day of the year for the UCC+i of the UB, since they gather -in the Historical Building- researchers from all knowledge areas to show the general public, in a communicative and fun way, the research carried out in the laboratory and their offices.
Marga Becerra, head of the UCC+i of the UB, and “mother” of the Science Festival, believes that culture, understood in general terms, usually leaves science aside. That is why the Festival tries to defend that “everyone has to have a minimum of scientific culture, regardless of their work or job, because it is very important in life: without scientific culture we cannot take decisions based on knowledge”.
With this, the Science Festival reaches five editions and continues to grow. The figures speak for themselves: about fifty workshops, almost two hundred researchers and more than 1,500 attendants. Some of the research teams are here for the first time, others are usual participants because they know this is an only chance to promote vocations among the young ones and to show the applications of their research to the general public.
The schools arrived at 9 a.m., and before 10 a.m. there were long queues in front of the stands. Many of the attendants were high school students but there were also some primary education students, as well as kids who came with their families. “My mother said I could skip the lessons at high school today and I came here with my grandfather. We hadnʼt come here before and we like it. Workshops look interesting and I didnʼt think it would be this fun”, said Héctor. “I was shocked to see the amount of workshops. Actually, the only comment I would add is that there is not enough time to see them all. We will come back next year”, said his grandfather.
Researcher beyond the white coat and the laboratory
“One of the noteworthy aspects of the Festival is the presence of faculties people do not usually associate with research, such as Philology or Library and Information Sciences, which proposed a workshop to see forensic phonetics can help to find out who the author of a crime is, or an activity to prove techniques of forensic photography”, notes Becerra.
Participants could take a test to test their knowledge on law, make a mock-up of the Earth seen from the inside, learn how archaeologic research works, find out about the physical bases and mathematical traces inside a soap bubble, or take neuropsychological evaluation tests on how the brain works, among others.
The list of activities the visitors can take part in goes on and on: from finding out the applications of research on stem cells, or understanding the concept of neuronal cultures, to entering the field of nanotechnology and see the implications of working at a nano-scale (between 1 and 100 nanometers), going through archaeoacoustics, to see how ancient musical instruments sounded like, and make one.
An experience to enable synergies among researchers
The Festival also aims for the researchers to meet the other colleagues and their workshops. Therefore, the activity offered a lunch for them. “The effort was worth it and the final valuation is very positive. The audience and researchers were happy and we are already thinking about the next edition”, notes Becerra.