Outreach

Umbertoluca gave a seminar titled “High-pressure neutron scattering to study plastic phases” at CFM, as part of the ongoing Neutron Scattering Series.

Tom, Sara and Pablo participated in the Science week fair, aimed to all publics. Tom and Sara demonstrated natural phenomena using simple tools and common items, such as non-newtonian liquids using cornstarch suspensions. Pablo participated in the “Escala tu mundo” (scale your world) workshop, where kids familiarised with the use of microscopes to understand their world.

In Bilbao, Tom participate in the event “Naukas Kids - Escala tu mundo” (Scale your world) where demonstrations of different physics effects where shown to little kids using samples of different sizes from macroscopic to quantum.

Sara and Tom participated in the DIPC’s and CFM’s School Visits Program. Visits were offered in face-to-face, allowing the students to directly interact with researchers in each session.

The visits included a brief introduction to materials science, nanoscience and research environment, followed by in-situ visits to the supercomputation facilities at DIPC and the labs at CFM.

Tom gave a tour of the thermodynamics laboratory to a group of secondary school students doing a science summer school organised by the Faculty of Chemistry as part of the EGOKITU programme.

The company race is an annual event to promote physical activity, camaraderie, and a sense of belonging among employees and companies. A portion of the registration fee is donated to charitable causes.

Tom guided a group of Erasmus students from the University of the Basque Country that visited several CFM laboratories. In particular, Tom focused on the laboratories where the Flash DSC2+ and Raman are located. These laboratories were described in the context of the research carried out by the group. The Erasmus students were all undergraduates and master’s students from a variety of disciplines (architecture, engineering, chemistry, psychology, etc.).

Irene presented the talk “Energy and how to store it” in the Amaraberri primary school, in the framework of Emakumeak Zientzian. There were almost 150 students from LH5 and LH6. The event was also recorded for their school television. The concepts of sensible heat, latent heat and thermochemical energy were explained by letting them move their bodies as molecules, to visualize what can happen at the molecular scale when materials store energy.

We participated in a workshop dedicated to women over 55, in the framework of the Emakumeak Zientzian initiative. We explained the physics behind experiments they can replicate at home with daily-life materials, i.e. water balloon that does not explode when heated to explain the energy storage capacity of water.

This activity was organized by the Materials Physics Center’s outreach department for high school students from Tolosa. Led by Pelayo and other researchers from the center, the students were able to explore a range of scientific instruments ranging from supercomputers to synthesis labs and microscopes that can visualize atoms. This experience served as a strong incentive for them to continue their studies in the scientific field.