Glowing frogs from a 3D printer, biopolymer capsules and non-woven fabric produced with spunbond technology – children and youth from Rybnik and Sieradz, under the supervision of Łukasiewicz experts, gained new knowledge and skills.
Spring workshops have been launched at Łukasiewicz – ŁIT and Łukasiewicz – KIT, they were carried out as part of a task commissioned by the president of the Łukasiewicz Centre. They are not only intended to attractively educate young people in the field of exact and natural sciences, shape knowledge about new technologies, but also inspire them to explore the secrets of science and promote the work and successes of the Łukasiewicz Research Network.
3D Printing Secrets
Fourth and fifth grade students from the School and Kindergarten Complex No. 5 in Rybnik attended the first 3D printing workshop. Andrzej Michnik from the Centre for Biomedical Engineering at the Łukasiewicz – Kraków Technological Institute has led the meeting in an interesting way by combining fun and education. Not only did the children learn the basics of modern technology such as 3D printing, but they also took part in FreeCAD design software training. The glowing and colour-changing frogs that popped out of the printer certainly helped in understanding the subject matter. Examples of various prints demonstrated the wide field of applications of 3D technology in everyday life, medicine and in industry. Further Łukasiewicz – KIT workshops will also be organised in Zabrze and Kraków. The plans include, among others, programming and… 3D printing using chocolate.
Science trackers in Łódź
Łukasiewicz – Łódź Institute of Technology turned into the Science Trackers’ Institute. The Kazimierz Jagiellończyk High School No. 1 in Sieradz’s students were personally led into the laboratories and onto the production halls by Ignacy Łukasiewicz, Maria Skłodowska-Curie and Ary Sternfeld. During workshops located in several stations around the institute, experts presented knowledge in an accessible way and guided the work of the young people. And so, in one of the laboratories, students could prepare the biopolymer capsules on their own. In another, they performed thin-layer chromatography of dyes under chemists’ watchful eye. On the shop floor, they not only produced nonwovens using spunbond technology, but also tested the differences between nonwovens by experimenting.
An important element of the transition from station to station, i.e. from workshop to workshop, were tasks and knowledge test in a special application called “NAŁUKAsiewicz – the trail of science”. Thanks to such an attractive form of the workshop, even two-star pupils ended up performing as four or five-star ones, and the three fastest pupils providing best answering were rewarded.
By June, a total of around two hundred young people from the Łódzkie Voivodeship schools will have taken part in the Łukasiewicz – ŁIT project.
Spring SON workshops in 4 institutes
Spring workshops to educate and popularise science among young children are held at four institutes: also at Lukasiewicz – IEL and Łukasiewicz – INS. They are subsidised from the state budget and implemented within the framework of a task commissioned by the Łukasiewicz Centre President.
This is another activity in the field of social responsibility of science, conducted by the Łukasiewicz Research Network.
