Science Around Us Foundation

September 2019

Science is Interesting!

The Science Festival has gathered visitors for the second time. It was held with the financial and organizational support from the Science Around Us Foundation.

More than 10,000 guests came to the Central Botanical Garden of the NAS of Belarus, half of which were children, pupils, and students. The program of the forum was much more extensive and diverse, and the number of sites increased.

What was prepared for the visitors? First of all, lectures. Simply said, famous researchers spoke to students about space, chemistry, biology, and medicine. Lecturers presented projects popular in the city: Massaraksh, Science Beside Itself, Eclab, TEDxLiceumBSU, and the Tribune of the Scientist.

Second of all, the guests could attend science shows and master classes, because science is also fun. The visitors were entertained by the staff of the Quantum, Elemento, Experimentus science museums, and the Smart Minsk project. Several quizzes took place under the auspices of the Mozgoboinya project, while the DOW company (an international chemical company) held master classes and demonstrations of chemical processes throughout the event.

An extended program was also presented by schools of robotics. The Robots and Technologies platform offered an opportunity to participate in master classes by major schools, to control a robot or get acquainted with the developments of successful Belarusian startups, such as Skinive and the Robatz Network. This is third of all.

Fourth of all, an exhibition of developments of the NAS of Belarus stretched along the entire central alley of the Botanical Garden demonstrating the results of most recent artificial selection efforts and microclones of trees, mushrooms, an art therapy laboratory and a book cafe, an archaeological museum, an opportunity to get a DNA portrait or test tastes of different products, phototherapy and photostimulation, and a host of other things.

Fifth of all, the festival turned out to be international. The NAUKA 0+ All-Russian Science Festival presented a platform dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the creation of the periodic table, and the Atomic Energy Information Center developed a program lifting the veil on a nuclear power plant operation.

But that’s not the half of the story. There was a children’s area at the festival, a university platform, a street food zone, to mention but a few.

As judged by the interest to the festival shown by the residents of the city, the eyes of children wide open, the queues to attend master classes and science shows, it goes without saying that the festival organizers managed to do something that the school and parents sometimes fail, namely, to get across the idea that science is interesting!

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