Around 200 students from Primary, Secondary and Baccalaureate schools in Lanzarote participated in the Mini-Science and Innovation Fair held recently at the Fuerteventura Technology Park, conceived as a point of dissemination and demonstration of the work carried out by the main research centers throughout the archipelago.
The initiative, organized by the Ministry of Economy, Industry, Commerce and Knowledge, through the Canary Agency for Research, Innovation and Information Society (ACIISI), has had the collaboration of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, through the area of Education.
During an intense day, the students and teachers, who were accompanied by the island councilor, were able to discover the most interesting areas of science and technology in robotics, marine science, digital animation or telecommunications, as well as present their own experiments. In this sense, the Mini-Fair featured exhibitions, workshops, talks and activities aimed at the general public. The event also hosted this year the fourth edition of the Scientific Gambuesa, a space where the most outstanding technology projects or scientific experiments developed by the schools themselves were shown.
From the Cabildo, the contributions made by the students of the Las Maretas Secondary Education Institute in Arrecife are highlighted, among which are the representations of the so-called Lissajaous Curves, corresponding to the superposition of two simple harmonic motions and the experiment of the 'Dance of pendulums'. It also contributed the photographic exhibition of images of the Sun, taken with the solar telescope of the CEP of Lanzarote. However, the most spectacular project was, without a doubt, the 'Megamenger' or Cube, which is a fractal object more than a meter and a half high, for whose construction more than 70,000 'business card' type cards were used, dedicating more than five months of intense work.
The Education Area of the Cabildo of Lanzarote has collaborated with the financing of this project, which is part of an international challenge, promoted by Queen Mary University of London. The IES Las Maretas and its Department of Mathematics is the only Secondary Education institute in all of Spain to overcome this challenge, an honor it shares with universities as important as the University of Cambridge, MIT of the United States or the University of Bath.
Final phase of Ciberlandia
Precisely, the IES Las Maretas hosted this Tuesday, November 27, the final phase of Ciberlandia, a program of short workshops to publicize part of the cultural heritage of the Canary Islands and at the same time discover the world of robotics.
In this way, through practical games, created especially for the occasion as it is related to the European Year of Cultural Heritage, students become aware of the social and economic utility of science and technology, as well as their professional appeal for the future.
In this sense, the Councilor for Education of the first Island Corporation, Carmen Rosa Márquez, praised this initiative because "it not only allows to bring, in a playful way, scientific knowledge to the youngest, but also encourages among them the taste for science, something that, without a doubt, will contribute to more than one student opting in the future to become a scientist."
A November full of science
During this month of November and, thanks to the Science and Innovation Weeks, the students of Lanzarote have had an extensive program of activities, such as the screening of the documentary 'Amaro Pargo. Between legend and history', at the El Salinero Theater. The film, directed by Juan Alfredo Amil narrates, in a "very playful" way, the story of the Canarian Amaro Rodríguez Felipe, the most famous corsair in the history of the Canary Islands, being one of the most prominent pirates of the first half of the 18th century in the Atlantic. Through "a masterful production", by Rumén Justo and Benjamín Reyes and "an interesting plot", the students were able to discover the famous treasure of Amaro Pargo.
On the other hand, the celebration of the scientific musical show 'La física suena' also stands out, a theatrical format where science, entertainment and social networks are combined with the aim of inspiring young people and showing them that science can be fun.
The presenters of the show, Javier Moreno, musician and drummer of the Canarian group Efecto Pasillo, and Javier Santaolalla, telecommunications engineer and doctor in particle physics, inspired the students to work hard on what they dream of. During the performance, the challenge arose of playing a song, but musicians and instruments were missing, so the students had to use the laws of Physics.