Seville, 15 May 2016. Last Friday, cicCartuja presented the fifth edition of the Future Scientists Award during the 15th Science Fair, which took place from 11 to 13 May at the Seville Exhibition and Congress Centre. The general aim of this award is to foster scientific vocations and promote students’ interest in research, as well as to highlight talented young people, their teachers and their centres, making their achievements known and encouraging them to continue their participation in the field of science and technology.
The award is worth €500 for the best scientific outreach project presented at the Fair’s stands; in addition, two second prizes were awarded, valued at €250. Students will also be invited to present their projects to cicCartuja scientists and the general public at the Future Scientists Conference, which will be held during Science Week in November 2017.
After visiting the stands and evaluating all the projects presented by the Secondary and High School centres, the jury, made up of cicCartuja researchers Rosalía Poyato (ICMS), Juan Manuel Benito (IIQ) and José Mª Ortega (IBVF), agreed that the winners were:
Bioclimatic architecture and sustainable development (IES Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, Seville) – 1st prize
With this project, the students intended to demonstrate that science can help us achieve a more sustainable and healthy lifestyle. The key is in acquiring habits such as recycling, extensive exploitation methods, ecological architecture or the use of renewable energies. In this last point, the winning project of the V cicCartuja Award for Future Scientists focused on the surprising possibilities offered by materials such as perovskite or graphene. Group work, innovation and entrepreneurship or respect for other forms of life are other points to take into account in the development of this dissemination work.
Applied waves (IES Leonardo da Vinci, Seville) – Runner-up 1
The work of this educational center is linked to the visualization of the types of waves according to their propagation and form, in addition to the phenomena associated with them. Among the experiments that these students presented, the demonstrations with surface waves in a liquid, sound and light stand out, in addition to practical applications based on telecommunications and automatic detection systems
The circus of innovation (Colegio Alemán Alberto Durero, Seville) – Runner-up 2
The dissemination students embarked on the preparation of a circus show, where the proposed activities ranged from cleaning the track to filming and broadcasting the show. To do this, scientific disciplines such as Biology or Physics were applied. As an example of this, the students had the help of the robot Albrecht-E. Among its functions, in addition to presenting the different numbers, was cleaning the premises, before and after the show, as well as transporting garbage and waste to the landfill.
Likewise, the jury also agreed that there should be six finalist projects:
The brain, that great unknown (IES Hispalis, Seville)
Universe and sustainability (IES Bellavista, Seville)
Oil, chemistry and the environment (Fundación Educativa Doctrina Cristiana, Seville)
Be your personal trainer! (IES La Puebla, La Puebla de Vícar, Almería)
Playing with light (Colegio Salesiano Nuestra Señora del Águila, Alcala de Guadaíra, Seville)
By nose: “The chemistry of smell” (IES Juan Ciudad Duarte, Bormujos, Seville)
