Science Week opens with sustainability as a common base

Today, the starting pistol was introduced to Catalunya Science Week, the SC’21. The thematic focus this year is sustainability, which will guide the many science dissemination activities offered by research centers, companies, museums, schools and entities across Catalonia. SC’21 will host over three hundred participatory events on science and citizenship from 12 to 21 this month, and It can be consulted on its website.

At the presentation of SC’21 in the Parliament of Catalonia, Portabella, Director of Fundació Catalana per la Recerca i la Innovació (FCRi), commented that “apart from the dissemination of science, the fact that many companies, universities and research centers open their doors prevents misinformation and fake newsIt helps spread scientific culture.”

Sustainability after COP26

“Several ephemeris for international years related to climate and more sustainable development coincide,” explains Enrique Jarrell, Coordinator of the FCRi 21 Standing Committee, in remarks to vanguard. For example, the International Year of the Creative Economy for Sustainable Development or the centenary of the Meteorological Service of Catalonia Meteocat, among others.

“We’ve been pioneering a focus on dissemination of science activities since 1996 in a multi-day event,” Jarrell says. The coordinator adds: “Then the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology, at the beginning of the year 2000, began to spread it in the rest of the country, and today it is celebrated in some independent communities.”

This year there will be a showcase of live activities that can also be enjoyed online and purely virtual activities. The technology and experience gained by covid have enhanced this coordination, as well as proposing actions and dissemination projects that could be implemented a day later, culminating in Science Week. For example, Science Day in schools.

SC’21 (FCRi) promotional video

Types of activities

“Since the beginning of October, we have engaged with more than 140 high schools in debates on astrophysics, robotics, social networks and the circular economy,” Garrell details. The event will take place on November 17th, but we worked for a month with 3rd and 4th ESO students, with whom content was shared and challenge raised in each discipline. “On Science Day in Schools, an online meeting will be broadcast with experts from each subject to comment on the ideas that the schoolchildren had to solve”

Other activities organized by FCRi include science monologues, which will take place on November 19 with the science and humor competition finalists, and a training session with the monologue group Big Van Ciencia. Other activities include cinema, exhibitions, star and planet observations, street level experiences, talks and conferences, games and street art.

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