Competition

Continuing on from the great success of our annual science fair, which brings researchers into contact with teachers and students, Science is Wonderful! launched a new initiative called Expertiment for the Classroom, expanding these opportunities to  anywhere in Europe. This fun new project helped connect MSCA researchers with motivated teachers, allowing them to team up together and create new learning resources for our online catalogue. The competition ran from 7 November 2022 until 9 January 2023.

Over 500 researchers and teachers took part, with over 100 excellent proposals submitted to our jury, an international and varied group to whom we are very grateful for their participation and time devoted to the project.

They included Marianne Hintjens, a primary school teacher, Malgorzata Malczyk, a secondary school teacher, Lourdes Morillas Viñuales, an MSCA researcher and Domna Paschalidou, an official from the European Research Executive Agency.

Though they had a tough time deciding who were to be the winners, eventually they agreed on their top three proposals, who we are delighted to finally be able to share with you.
 
Without further ado, let us present the winners of the trips to Brussels, including a visit the Science is Wonderful! fair on 16-17 March!

In no particular order, we have:

• The Bio-Escape Room, an interactive game designed to introduce students to cell biology and medical technology, from Luis Cerrajero de la Cruz, teacher at Cepaim, Madrid, Spain, and Sahba Mobini, an MSCA researcher at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Spanish National Research Council) Congratulations!
   
• Galileo XR, an exciting introduction to the scientific method for children of various ages, from Dalia Kager, teacher at Eugen Kvaternik elementary school, Velika Gorica in Croatia, and Alexander Marinšek, an MSCA researcher at KU Leuven, Ghent, Belgium! Congratulations!
   
• And last but not least, Blood Typing: presented in the form of a Crime Scene Investigation, a role-playing game that teaches children how blood analysis can contribute to the information-finding process, from Katerina Kapodistria a teacher at Ralleio Geniko Lykeio Thileon Pirea, Athens, Greece, and Aline Hatem, an MSCA researcher at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (French National Centre for Scientific Research). Congratulations!

All three proposals will now be professionally produced, translated into the EU’s 24 official languages, and added to our catalogue of online activities. While we wait, why not check out the comics, quizzes and games already available on the Science is Wonderful!  Online Activities homepage, where all our materials are produced with the help of Europe’s top researchers.

We would like to thank all our participants and jury for taking part, you have all produced many great proposals, and we hope the collaboration between schools and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions researchers will continue in the future!