NanoEduca celebrated its fourth poster and video contest at CCCB

by Francisco Paños

The program, meant to introduce nanoscience in the secondary classrooms, holds a yearly contest that awards the best poster and videos on nanoscience made by students. The event included an informal talk between two top-level researchers and a science performance.

NanoEduca is an initiative to introduce nanoscience in the secondary schools. It is the result of the collaboration between ICN2, UB, UAB and CESIRE. The program consists of three different parts: teacher training on nanoscience, nanokits to work with the students on different nano-related concepts and a yearly contest in which posters and videos realized by the students are presented. In 2018 it was awarded with the National Scientific Communication Prize (Premi Nacional de Comunicació Científica), given by the Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation (FCRi) and the Catalan Government.

This year, the NanoEduca contest took place at CCCB in the context of the events linked to its exhibit about Quantum physics. It started with some parliaments by personalities representing each organising institution, the University of Barcelona (UB), the ICN2, the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and the Catalan Ministry of Education (CESIRE). Immediately after that, an informal conversation between Dr Arantxa Fraile (UB) and Dr César Moreno (ICN2 Atomic Manipulation and Spectroscopy Group) started. The chat was moderated by Dr Jordi Díaz (UB), who invited the audience to pose their own questions. Although shy at first, a couple of presents in the form of T-shirts and pen-drives spurred the students, who began to ask questions with genuine interest.

Afterwards, the posters contest began. The different groups of students presented their work to a jury composed of Dr Gemma Garcia (UAB), Dr Julio Pérez (CESIRE) and the aforementioned Dr César Moreno (ICN2), who did not hesitate to ask tricky questions.

The act continued with Àlex Argemí (ICN2) as host introducing “Nanoscience Top 10”, a science performance conducted by Guillermo Orduña (EsCiencia). It combined both accurate and straightforward explanations with exciting experiments. The attendees laughed, applauded and engaged with an interactive journey to show the exciting phenomena that happen at the nanoscale and how they impact in our everyday life.

Finally, the most expected moment arrived: the award ceremony. The prizes to the best videos and poster, sponsored by BASF and Lipotec, were two NanoEduca’s Nanokits for the winning schools, copies of the book Creadors de futur, written by the ICN2 Group Leader Dr Pedro Gómez (Novel Energy-Oriented Materials Group), an adhesive tape dispenser signed by Prof. Konstantin Novoselov, Nobel prize in 2010 for his work on graphene, and a hard disc memory signed by Prof. Albert Fert, Nobel Prize in 2007 for the discovery of the Giant Magnetoresistance Effect.

The event concluded with the farewell and thanks of the NanoEduca team to all the participants. While we wait for the fifth edition, we can watch the videos from the winners of this one:

Video summary of the event:

Video summary of all the participants:

Best Scientific Communication Video Award winner (INS Puig Castellar)

Best Video Award winner (INS XXV Olimpíada)