La Ciència al Teu Món (LCATM) has been to YOMO (Youth Mobile Congress), the Barcelona science and technology fair, presenting four proposals for scientific dissemination developed around the code of life: the genomics of the adaptation, the diversity of organisms, human evolution and primitive technology.
LCATM has brought together in the same space researchers and scientific communicators from four leading and avant-garde centers in the research of the sciences of biological and social evolution of our country: the laboratory of Evolutionary and Functional Genomics (González Lab) of the Evolutionary Biology Institute from Barcelona (IBE), the Sea Sciences Institute from Barcelona (ICM), La Institució Milà i Fontanals de Barcelona (IMF) and the Catalan Institute of Human Paleo-Ecology and Social Evolution (IPHES), based in Tarragona.
Dr. Josefa González, the principal investigator of González Lab and scientific director of LCATM, visited us together with pre- and post-doctoral researchers from her research group. All of them were available to answer questions and resolve the scientific concerns of students and teachers about adaptation genomics. With the scientific goal of understanding how organisms adapt to the diversity of environments on the planet, Dr. Josefa González and her group of researchers, presented us, through a fun participatory activity, how they study the adaptive mobile elements in Drosophila melanogaster (the fruit fly) and its citizen science proposal Melanogaster: Catch The Fly! (MCTF) in which they invite schools and high school students to be an active part of their research.
The Research Group on Coastal Biological Processes of the ICM, led by Dra. Esther Garcés, as well as the center’s own scientific communicators, immersed themselves with the young visiting students and their teachers in Sea-Dance: Keep The Rhythm: an interactive game that aims to balance a trophic network in which the protagonists are marine microorganisms typical of our coasts, flagellates, ciliates, algae… and players must calm their needs in order to maintain the balance of the marine ecosystem, all at a good pace and at once dancing. This attractive and active proposal allows knowing the microscopic protagonists that sustain the trophic networks in the ocean, the great character in charge of half of the production of oxygen and raw material of the planet, at the same time as becoming aware of the impact of the human actions on them.
Dr. Juan Francisco Gibaja of the Institución Milà Fontanals (IMF) and Dr. Antonio Palomo, professor of Prehistory at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, brought us an interesting manipulative proposal to learn about the technology of prehistory. Surrounded by tools, utensils, prehistoric ornaments, and archaeological finds, Dr. Antonio Palomo introduced prehistoric technology to those who wanted to experiment with it with their own hands.
The Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES) took us on an archaeological adventure in search of the origin of humanity in Eritrea (border with Ethiopia) with the help of Dr. Bienvenido Martínez-Navarro, co-director of the expedition with Eudald Carbonell. Dr. Martínez-Navarro told us some of the most relevant findings as well as some of the most interesting secrets about this exciting discipline, while Lluís Batista, a scientific communicator at the same center, tested our knowledge of human evolution with an entertaining activity that included magnificent reproductions of fossil finds.
This has been the first edition of the YOMO technology and science fair in Barcelona and has taken place at the Montjuïc fairgrounds on 27 and 28 February and 1st and 2nd March, visited by a total of 20,000 students from schools across the nation, ages 10 to 16, along with their teachers and professors.
For LCATM it has been an extraordinary experience, both to see the satisfaction of the audience with the dynamics and scientific content of the proposed activities and to enjoy and share them accompanied by leading researchers and excellent communicators from leading centers in the study of evolution in our country.
We would like to thank the organization as well as all the collaborators who made it possible and especially Josefa González, Maite Garazi Barrón, Míriam Merenciano and Jose Luis Villanueva, from González Lab Lab (IBE); Esther Garcés, María Vicioso, Rachele Gallisai, Elisabet Alacid and Magda Vila of the ICM; Juan Francisco Gibaja of the IMF, Antonio Palomo of the UAB, and Bienvenido Martínez-Navarro and Lluís Batista, of the IPHES.
Thank you for your dedication and enthusiasm!
Writing: Alicia Serrano (LCATM)
- Some photos of #MelanogasterCTF’s participation in #YoMoBCN (2019):
- Some photos of #MelanogasterCTF’s participation in #YoMoBCN (2017):
