Skip to main content
< Back to news
Researcher Alba Ortega with Sergi Cantos from the PCB's Unit of Scientific Culture and Innovation (Photo: Barcelona City Council).
 28.10.2019

The Barcelona Science Park takes part in the 13th Science Festival

The Barcelona Science Park (PCB) once again took part in the Science Festival, a major event sponsored by Barcelona City Council as part of the Barcelona Science Programme designed to raise public awareness about science and technology and get people involved in moving them forward. Over the weekend, the Moll de la Fusta was turned into an enormous open-air laboratory where 5,000 people performed experiments and had a great time at the 170 recreational and informative activities run by over 150 organisations.

 

The Barcelona Science Park (PCB) was at the 13th Science Festival with two activities led by researcher Alba Ortega which let people have fun while exploring science: Get polymerised! and Can we create superheroines?.

In the first workshop, participants found out what polymers are and how science uses them to transport drugs through our bodies while also experimenting with them by making their own slime. In the second activity, attendees were asked to extract a sample of their own DNA and learn what it is and how it can be modified to cure diseases or even change eye colour. Both activities are part of the PCB’s “Research in Society” programme coordinated by its Units of Scientific Culture and Innovation (UCCi), which is supported by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) under the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.

A big forum for the public to learn about science and technology

The Science Festival is a major science and technology popularisation event sponsored by Barcelona Science Programme which brings together over a hundred activities run by research centres, universities, associations, facilities, specialists and other organisations. Over two days the public has an unmissable date with science to explore all areas of research and meet its key players.

Some 15,000 people of all ages attended this 13th edition which this year moved to its new site on the Moll de la Fusta. Practically every field of scientific and technological knowledge featured in the programme and many of the activities marked the anniversaries of three personalities and events that transformed society: 500 years since Leonardo da Vinci’s death, 150 years since Dmitri Mendeleev published his periodic table of chemical elements, and 50 years since the first Moon landing.