Iscte - University Institute of Lisbon is part of the SCIEVER - Science for everyone consortium with other Portuguese universities and coordinated by University of Lisbon for the organization of the European Researchers' Night (ERN).
Last September 30, the 2022 edition of the ERN took place a bit all over Europe. Lisbon was one of the cities that staged this year's edition and our research center was there to present two activities. Marina González and Pedro Simão Mendes organized CIS participation in the ERN in collaboration with the researchers Raquel António and Joana Alexandre.
Raquel António presented an interactive activity about Cyberbullying aimed mostly at teenagers and young adults. The goal of this activity was to alert for the presence of online bullying, especially in the social media platforms, and inform about the appropriate ways to deal with it. Preventing (cyber)bullying is one important step towards inclusion. For about three hours of activity, several participants went by the CIS spot at the Museum of Natural History and Science, testing their knowledge about cyberbullying and learning a bit more on the topic.
For the researcher Raquel António, this "was a very enriching experience!", having emphasized the sharing of her research and awareness of relevant topics with "people from diverse areas and ages (...), following the motto of inclusion and science for everyone".
Later that night, the Erasmus+ project YARD4ALL was presented by the researcher Joana Alexandre. During this activity, children (and adults) engaged in different challenges, from guessing which vegetables were hidden, either in pictures or inside boxes, and drawing a school's garden, to calculating the perimeter of a garden, or even estimating the gains after an initial investment for the school's garden. These activities aimed to mimic what the project developed: non-formal educational tools for bringing together children with and without special educational needs, teaching contents of math, science and entrepreneurship for children from 6 to 12 years-old. The innovative component of the project was the use of a peer-to-peer model, in which children were mentors to other children.
"Having had the opportunity to disseminate the project in which I was involved to a diverse audience was a very rewarding experience," says researcher Joana Alexandre, pointing out that seeing the interaction of children, parents and students "allowed not only to discuss common points with similar projects that the public knew within their life contexts (for example, their children's school), but also to highlight the difference that Yard4All brought," referring to the peer model used in the project. For this researcher, "the feedback was undoubtedly very positive!".
CIS has been actively engaged in Science Communication initiatives such as ERN, in which we participate since 2016. Below you can find some pictures of this year's participation.
