A group of thirty junior high school students from Błażowa community, participants in the „Youth Science Lab” project carried out by “Inspiration Generator” Foundation as part of the PAFF's “Equal Opportunities” Program and volunteers of the “PROJECTOR – Student Volunteers” Program visited the PAFF Representative Office in Poland on July 1, 2013.
The aim of the project, involving a group of 30 teenagers, is to improve their opportunities for their better start into adulthood, including learning the team work and principles of leadership as well as broadening knowledge and interest in science. The „Youth Science Lab” consists of task teams. Students participating in them prepare scientific experiments in such fields as robotics, chemistry, physics and biology.
Radosław Jasiński, Program Director who coordinates the “Equal Opportunities” and the “PROJECTOR – Student Volunteers” Programs welcomed the guests on behalf of the PAFF, presented the Foundation’s activities and thanked the youth and student-volunteers for their involvement in the Foundation’s educational initiatives. „Thank you for investing with such enthusiasm what is so valuable to you – your time. We are very interested in the effects of your work,” he said.
Visitors from Błażowa showed a several-minute presentation and told about their activities carried out under the „Youth Science Lab” project. The students participate in workshops during which they learn such social skills as self-presentation, team work and public speaking. „We missed a place where we could spend our free time. We share a fascination with science. Therefore we decided to submit an application to the “Equal Opportunities” Program. Thanks to that the „Youth Science Lab” was established and it became our second home,” said one of the project participants during the presentation.
Next, representatives of each team presented several interesting scientific experiments, for example using the simple models we learned how the lung functions…
how we can make the vessel filled with water make a sound…
or how the intelligent robots built with Lego bricks operate.
The inspiration for the Lab came from scientific presentations made in Błażowa by student-volunteers participating in the “PROJECTOR – Student Volunteers” Program. Acquired knowledge and skills can be verified during scientific picnics which are organized by the project participants for children and young people (e.g. „The Night of Young Discoverers” or „RoboShow” held under the Sector 3.0 conference). The aim of the visits to he Krakow Garden of Experiments and Copernicus Science Center in Warsaw was to inspire young people by showing them interesting experiments, ways of their presentation and next attempts to carry them out on their own. Thanks to multi-media training sessions, young people are able to make short multimedia educational spots which will be published on the Lab website https://www.facebook.com/MlodziezoweLaboratoriumNauki.
The project is managed by the “Inspiration Generator” Foundation: www.fgi.org.pl.
