Education Programmes

Scientists, teachers and communicators work together on this initiative to bring nanoscience into the classroom, co-led by the ICN2 together with the Universitat de Barcelona (UB), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and CESIRE.

This programme includes the design and production of an experiment kit related to the world of nano. These so-called NanoKit are distributed to schools throughout Catalonia via the Catalan Ministry of Education to offer teachers a set of interactive experiences in nanoscience linked to subjects like Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics and even Philosophy.

In 2020, the yearly contest for schools and educational courses to train high school teachers were cancelled due to the pandemic situation.

Thus, the ICN2 kicked off the design of new activities adapted to a hybrid education format, seeking a greater impact. The online activities to be used in the classroom together with the existing nanokit will be launched in 2021. This initiative is possible thanks to the funding from the ICN2 Severo Ochoa Programme, the Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología (FECYT-MICINN) and the Fundació Catalana per a la Recerca i la Innovació (FCRi).

The Fundació Catalunya / La Pedrera has developed a programme to open the doors of the region’s top research institutes to outstanding secondary school students in different subjects. The ICN2 and IFAE have coordinated the five editions of the series of events devoted to Physics. Students participating in the first edition of Crazy for Physics (Bojos per la Física) are now entering the first stages of their formal research careers.

In 2020, 27 High School students interacted during over 10 work sessions with researchers from all the participating excellence centres offering exciting experiences that explored the biggest and the smallest scales of the universe. Coordinated from the ICN2 and the IFAE, Crazy for Physics also involved UAB, ICMAB, ICFO, ICE, UB and Alba Synchrotron. The idea is to provide participant students experiment-based experiences while conveying a sense of what it is like to be a physics researcher.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the activities were redesigned to an online format. Although part of the excitement of interacting with research equipment was lost, all the involved researchers and the students worked together to make the most of the activities that became virtual after March 2020. The 2021 edition is prepared to be fully online, but the transformation process required a great dose of innovation and flexibility in the first stages of the pandemic.