Outreach activities
We seek to raise public awareness of chemical research as a key factor for progress in our society. ICIQ is also committed to engaging and encouraging youngsters to pursue a career in chemistry. To this end, in 2015 we carried out several outreach activities to audiences of all ages as a way to bring chemistry closer to society.
Química en Família
17th and 18th of November (ICIQ Auditorium)
“Química en Familia” is a chemistry workshop that has established itself as one of the most popular activities in the Science Week in Tarragona. This year, more than 140 children attended the event over two days. They came to ICIQ to become little scientists and they had the chance to perform various simple experiments using every-day materials. “Create your own perfume” was the title of the 2015 edition.
Crazy about Chemistry
In 2015 we carried out the second edition of our Crazy about Chemistry year-long course for high-school students. This training activity is funded by the Crazy about Science programme of Catalunya-La Pedrera Foundation. It is directed at first-year high school students with a special interest and talent for chemistry and research who want to expand their scientific knowledge through hands-on experiments in an excellent research centre.
From the Lab to the Classroom
CIQ provides secondary school teachers in Catalonia with the opportunity to participate in specialized courses or workshops. We want to bring teachers into a research lab for training workshops that can be easily transferable to the classroom. Our workshops are designed to provide teachers with educational materials and assistance to bridge the gap between research and schools.
In 2015 we offered the course Methods of analysis of Organic Compounds in collaboration with the Departament d’Ensenyament de la Generalitat de Catalunya. This course is coordinated by ICIQ’s research support area. We also made the following workshops available to the teachers: “How to separate a food additive from a sedative“, ”Light as a source of energy” and “The synthesis of aspirin.”
ICIQ Teaching and Learning Laboratory
Every Thursday we welcomed high school students to participate in one of our experimentation workshops. Schools from Tarragona had the opportunity to pick one of our three specialized workshops and challenge their students to experience chemical research first hand.
Workshops:
• First-aid kit chemistry
• Food chemistry
• Clean chemistry
Science fairs
Science fairs are a good platform for reaching all kinds of audiences, especially children and teenagers. In 2015 ICIQ participated in the following science fairs:
Recerca en Directe (CosmoCaixa, Barcelona, April 8-11): Workshop on crystallography.
NOVUM: Festival Ciència, Tecnologia i Innovació (Barcelona, April 25): Workshop on luminescent chemical reactions.
Espai Ciència Saló de l’Ensenyament (Barcelona, March 19): Home experiments.
Other activities to support high school students
A high school student had a three-week placement in the laboratory of Professor José Ramón Galán-Mascarós through the “Joves i Ciència” programme (Fundació Catalunya-La Pedrera) in which ICIQ participates. Also, the groups of professors Palomares and Galán-Mascarós hosted two students awarded by the Societat Catalana de Química (SCQ) for the quality of their research projects.
ICIQ also opens its doors to students and secondary education centres that wish to do the experimental part of their research project (treball de recerca) in our centre. In 2015 we oversaw 32 research projects.
My first experiment
In 2015 we visited eight primary schools to show chemistry to the little ones. Classrooms were turned into laboratory benches to perform experiments such as volcanoes erupting vinegar and baking soda, milk painting or secret lemon writing.