During this academic year 2023-2024, more than 3,000 students in the third and fourth year of Compulsory Secondary Education and Vocational Training in the province of Valencia have enjoyed and actively participated in the workshops of the CiènciaLab programme. The initiative carried out on the Gandia and Vera campuses (in Valencia) of the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) seeks to awaken students’ interest in science and technology in a fun and entertaining way and, at the same time, to highlight its application in everyday life.
With this double objective in mind, the Science Lab workshops, an activity promoted by UPV’s Communication Area (ACOM), are held throughout the academic year.
The workshops, which last an hour and a half each, are given by highly qualified university lecturers and staff from different areas of research and knowledge from the respective campuses of the University. These facilitators, with their extensive academic and professional backgrounds, ensure that the workshops are informative, engaging, and meet the educational needs of the students. During the activity, which takes place in the morning, groups of a maximum of 20 to 25 students take part in two workshops and, at the end, have the opportunity to visit the campus.
The balance of the programme in this edition has been a notable success in terms of participation figures. More than 2,500 students from around twenty schools from different localities such as Mislata, Paterna, Torrent, Ribarroja, Paiporta, Cullera, Benifaió, Quart de Poblet, Algemesí, Albalat de la Ribera, among many others, and from the city of Valencia itself attended the programme of workshops held on the Vera campus. We have received positive feedback from students, with many expressing their excitement and interest in the topics covered. As a novelty, this year the number of workshops has also been considerably increased, adding new topics to reach 22, in order to respond to the growing demand from the schools.
From Physics, Chemistry, Biotechnology, through Mathematics, Computer Science, Robotics, Geodesy, to the field of Restoration and Food Technology, are some of the many areas covered in the workshops. For instance, we had workshops on ‘The Science of Baking’ where students learned about the chemical reactions that occur during baking, and ‘Introduction to Robotics’ where they built and programmed their own robots. These workshops have been taught by about twenty specialists in different fields of knowledge who make this activity possible thanks to their effort and work.
On the Gandia campus, six sessions of two workshops per term have also been maintained, with the participation of 500 students from different centres (from Cullera, Gandia, Jalance, La Font d’en Carròs…) and involving academic staff from different degrees; Environmental Sciences, Audiovisual Communication or Telecommunications.
Given the success of this last edition, we will try to increase the number of CiènciaLab workshops on offer for the next academic year.
To this end, ACOM is already working on the next call for applications for Ciència Lab, which is expected to open in September 2024, allowing more students to discover and enter the world of science and technology initially and differently from the traditional one.