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Science Fair

Feria de la Ciencia (Science Fair) in Seville, is the principal activity of the project Ciencia viva, Ciencia compartida (Living Science, Shared Science) which is developed by the Sociedad Andaluza para la Divulgación de la Ciencia, SADC, (Andalusian Society on the Popularization of Science). In Science Fair multiple educational institutions, research centers and university schools are invited to spread and share their projects, experiments and scientific knowledge with the general public, especially primary school and high-school students. The objective of this annual event is to promote learning and spreading of science, to stimulate research and to favor the exchange of experiences and education between professors, students, families, scientific community, companies and the man in the street. The projects that are exhibited in the Science Fair belong to different scientific fields: Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Biology, Technological Development, etc. Moreover, each year the Fair is focused on a subject matter.

5200 square m assigned for scientific exhibits, 85 stands, 26 scientific institutions, companies and universities, 20200 visitors. These were approximately the numbers of the IX edition of Feria de la Ciencia, which took place on May 12nd to 14th, 2011, at the Pabellón del Futuro of the Isla de La Cartuja, in Seville. With the topic “Everything is number”, it tried to show the public how numbers and math are part of our everyday life and all disciplines of knowledge, from Ecology, to Literature, as well as Economy, Biology and so on. Also, it celebrated the International Year of Chemistry and the International Year of Forests.

Thanks to CABD (Centro Andaluz de Biología del Desarrollo) and OTRI (Oficina de Transferencia de Resultados de Investigación), the UPO-Sevilla Team had the opportunity to participate in this edition of the Science Fair and explain what Synthetic Biology is to the public. Also, we intended to transmit the importance of multidisciplinarity in 21st century science. With this aim, we organized some games to make sure that boys and girls from 5 to 18 years old could understand the meaning of synthetic biology as a new field of science, the basis of its innovative “based on parts” perspective and its need to embrace Informatics, Mathematics and Biology.

One of the games involved designing and creating a new cell that could do anything the designer, that is the child, would like to. The public was offered an empty and uncolored cell and was encouraged to “create your own cell” by inserting some puzzle pieces into it that provided defined functions. Other game (partially related with our project) lied in deciphering a color-coded secret message that was carried in fictitious bacterial multicolored plates, or on the other hand, create their own message from the color code.

Entertaining and instructive!