Science Park Science Fair celebrates its 25th anniversary

The Parque de las Ciencias Science Fair celebrates its 25th anniversary and the event, Dean Andalusia, cements its success as a meeting forum between science and society. Thousands of educators, students, and researchers from the autonomous community participated in the event, which began in 1998 and which, since then, has served to promote scholarly advocacy and promote scientific culture.

The Minister of Educational Development and Vocational Training, Patricia del Pozo, attended the activities celebrating the 28th anniversary of the Science Museum, which included holding open days and the 25th Science Fair, which cemented its success as a meeting forum between science and society. Thus, del Pozo expressed her satisfaction at being able to be a counselor at the anniversary “Science Park which has been a national and international standard for years for awakening scientific careers among students.”

Similarly, he stressed that the 25th Science Fair is an “excellent” opportunity to generate a passion for knowledge, spark concern and be able to publicize the amazing work being done by educational centers, both from students and teachers.

For his part, Vice-President of the Science Park and Mayor of Granada Paco Cuenca congratulated the whole city on the 28th anniversary of the Science Park, “the most important science museum in Spain, which has grown thanks to the efforts and motivation of a city that has unrivaled talent in science and research.”

The city president emphasized that “our garden is the pride of Granada” as a result of cooperation between institutions and highlighted that “Granada is the capital of science in part because of this wonderful garden that borders on excellence thanks to a team of workers and workers who have been educating, raising awareness and disseminating science for 28 years.”

25th Science Fair

The 25th Science Fair, which collaborates with the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology – Ministry of Science and Innovation, has brought together more than 870 participants including teachers, students and representatives of the R + D + i system, bringing science closer to visitors. 60 educational centers and research institutions from the eight Andalusian provinces presented 62 projects with expertise and topics as diverse as physics, mathematics, astronomy, ecology, biology, health, recycling, nutrition or sustainable energy.

All interesting such as the water mission presented by the Center for Early Childhood Education, CEIP Sutefíe de Zufre (Huelva), pollution of the aquatic ecosystem by IES Santo Domingo in El Puerto de Santa María (Cádiz), climate change: simulators presented on IES El Temple de Malahá (Granada) or Ríos de vida, a citizen science project run by educational centers to investigate water quality and environmental status of rivers and presented by the centres, IES Padre Poveda de Guadix (Granada), IES Padre Manjón and IES Miguel de Cervantes.

In addition to these projects dedicated to environmental and sustainability content, there were also projects dedicated to new technologies and robotics such as the programmable robotic arm presented by IES Gil de Zático in Torreperogil (Jaén) and the escornabot universe presented by CPR Las Ramblas in El Pozuelo (Granada), among other things.

There were also projects devoted to astronomy. Some of them are: Mission on the Moon: Oxygen Problems by IES Reyes Católicos de Vélez-Málaga (Málaga), Star Winds by IES José Manuel Caballero Bonald de Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz) or Music of the Spheres by IES Luis Jude Crespo de Armilla (Granada) .

In addition to fostering scientific interest and culture among citizens, a science fair fosters science vocations among the youngest and promotes the development of skills in general science communication from an early age. This is an excellent opportunity not only to convey the passion for research and innovation, but also to show the public the importance of publishing it.

This edition, like the previous year’s edition, had an online mode that could be followed on a delayed basis through the website https://feriaparquedelasciencias.com/, and in which more than 3335 schoolchildren and teachers from all over Andalusia participated. The aim of this digital edition is to democratize access to both publication and knowledge of scientific progress without geographical or physical boundaries. Thus, online programming, along with classroom space research, has included other sections dedicated to researchers who wish to communicate their scholarly work and online workshops for development from the educational centers themselves.

In this way, from May 8 to May 11, a series of mini-meetings were held with scientists on topics such as: Bioinspiration: innovation from nature. Recommended for the first cycle of primary school. Artificial Intelligence: From Turing to Chatting – GPT. Recommended for high school, baccalaureate and training courses. farming on the moon. Green Moon Project. Recommended for grades 2 and 3 of primary school. Nuclear fusion as the energy of the future. IFMIF – Gifts. Recommended for high school, baccalaureate and training courses. Inspiring scientific careers for girls continue to be a goal of the Science Park, which is why a meeting was held on the eighth day with female scientists in which 1,015 female students from all over Andalusia participated.

The fair has also organized online workshops: the STEAMaker Workshop and the Astronomical Instruments Workshop, specially designed for primary school students and involving 224 students from educational centers in Seville, Malaga, Jaén, Cadiz and Almeria.

XXL Science

At the 25th Science Fair, there was also a new XXL experiment that was dedicated this year to the stability and center of mass experiment. Under the name “In search of balance”, the participants were able to find out what the state of stability of the body depends on or what is the role of gravity, center of mass and point of support.

Science Documentary Marathon

Another activity framed in the Science Fair was the marathon of the scientific documentaries produced in the classroom, in which 50 students from Andalusian educational centers participated, presenting 9 documentaries. The 13th Science Documentary Marathon in the Classroom had the main theme of cinematic language at the service of science documentaries.

Accessible guided tours

To make the event easier to access for different audiences, guided tours for the blind community and the deaf community are held throughout the day. These visits included a selection of scientific pavilions presented by schoolchildren and some of the contents of the museum’s exhibitions.

Animation, music, science and traditional “cabezudos” representing some of the most famous scientists in history such as Galileo Galilei, Madame Curie or Charles Darwin, completed the activities for the day, as all museum spaces.

Since 1998, Science Park has maintained its commitment to science fairs as a model for bringing science and technology closer to the general public. Its roots go back to the museum’s first open day in 1996, which already included participatory experiences such as science demonstrations, workshops, and a planetarium marathon. Through this dialogue and other dialogue activities between science and society, the Science Park has worked on its goal of not being just a space, but using all possible strategies to bring science closer.
technology to society.

In this sense, the Science Fair is one of the initiatives in which this convergence takes place with greater intensity by facilitating the meeting between the educational sector, universities, companies and research centers that actively participate every year.

This release was attended by the President of the Parque de las Ciencias Confederation and the Minister of Development of Education and Vocational Training, Patricia del Pozo, the Vice-President of the Parque de las Ciencias Consortium and the Mayor of Granada, Paco Cuenca, and the Managing Director of the Science Park, Luis Alcalá, the authorities and members of the Board of Directors.