Eight students have developed their 2015 Joves i Ciencia Program projects at the ICN2 with the collaboration of eight of our researchers. In a two-week program, funded by the Fundació Catalunya La Pedrera, the pre-university students got in touch with real nanoscience and nanotechnology research.
Fundació Catalunya La Pedrera organizes every year a scientific summer program for High School students called Joves i Ciencia. The aim of the program is to allow students get in touch with real science through participating in and developing research projects as real scientists. To complete Joves i Ciencia, students must take three steps: a first contact with science in the Pyrenees, a stay in a research laboratory and, finally, they have to develop their own scientific project.
For the sixth consecutive year, ICN2 has been involved in this program. The Institute has fostered eight students who have developed their projects in our facilities in a two-week stay. All them are in the last years of High School preparation and have chosen nanoscience and nanotechnology topics for their second and third program phases with a view on their University studies. They were all high-motivated with the projects and strongly manifested their enthusiasm for having such an opportunity. The four ICN2 groups involved in the projects have been Force Probe Microscopy & Surface Nanoengineering Group, Supramolecular NanoChemistry & Materials Group, the Nanobioelectronics and Biosensors Group and Novel Energy-Oriented Materials Group.
Esteve Ribas and Andrea del Carme Fontanet have worked in the construction of an Atomic Force Microscope, under the supervision of the ICN2 Group Leader CSIC Researcher Jordi Fraxedas. Conrad Cardona and Elba Gusach developed their project in ICREA Prof Daniel Maspoch’s ICN2 Group exploring micro and nanoencapsulation methodologies, guided by Dr Sonia Garcia and Nereida Mejias. PhD Daniel Quesada and PhD Alex Zamora supervised Eloi Higueras and Alba Mesa in their project about synthesis and characterization of nanomaterials and their application in optical and electrochemical biosensors, in ICREA Prof Arben Merkoci’s ICN2 Group. Finally, Javier Arias and Anna Montesinos developed their research in thermic solar energy with PhD Rocio Rodriguez and ICN2 Group Leader CSIC Research Professor Pedro Gómez.
ICN2 wants to get closer to the educational community through programs such as Joves i Ciencia. Young students and their teachers are a strategic audience to stimulate the passion for science at schools, where the excellent researchers of the future are being formed. Fundació Catalunya La Pedrera is developing very interesting approaches to motivate students to get involved in scientific research-related professions.