From January 2 to 18, different courses showed their dependencies and brought their contents closer to boys and girls between 7 and 18 years old. 

Fun, learning and, above all, experiences were accumulated by the minors who participated in the various workshops of the University of Boys and Girls ULS 2024. The programming included fourteen workshops among which were the areas of Architecture, Design, LIITEC, Chemistry, Astronomy, Radio, FABLAB, Physics, Sports and Dentistry, with an estimated 260 participants in total.

The initiative, which takes place every year in the month of January, seeks to publicize university spaces and the possibility of sharing with university academics in their classrooms and laboratories, which during this period adapt their contents to receive boys and girls. in school stage. This initiative not only brings students closer to the higher education institution, but also allows them to generate contacts and experiment with topics that could be evaluated as a future university career choice. This is how Mg. Fernanda Milla, academic from the ULS Department of Astronomy, who gave the Astronomy workshop: “I hope you continue to have interest in coming to this type of workshops that are super enriching for your training because I even had students who did not know what they wanted to study in the university when they entered. Several of them told me: I now want to study Astronomy when it's my turn. A person from the third year and another from the eighth year told me: now that I see what this is all about, I would like to study it. And well, they have the opportunity to do it here at a public, state and regional university.”

This objective is added to others that were addressed from the different topics programmed by ULS academics in the workshops, such as: Comic, Radio, Preclinical Sciences of the Dentistry Career with the theme of duplicate in plaster of a dental model, Architecture, Expo Makers technologies, Architecture with Earth for Children, Recreational physical activities, and Exploring the laws of nature.

For his part, from the scientific area, Dr. Iván Fernández, Director of the Department of Chemistry and active collaborator in the workshop of the same name, highlighted that “It is important to have this activity when we have youth who in the future can think about being scientists. . The invitation is for you to feel like scientists today, and to feel that this is also your home. Tomorrow they will be applying and I hope we will have them again as students and then as professionals,” he said when welcoming the students.

In relation to new technologies, the workshops aimed at providing a new perspective regarding digital resources and sustainability developed were: Connecting Science and Creativity in Biomaterials: Biothreads Session and Science Learning Opportunities using augmented and virtual reality on mobile devices , which was developed on three occasions to offer the possibility of a larger audience, given the capacity of the laboratory. In this regard, Paulina Valdivia, academic of the Conecta ULS project, highlighted that “the workshop sought to bring creativity and science closer to the creation of biomaterials, mainly to promote the topic of sustainability in children through creation based on waste that one has, and thus change their vision a little of what one can do with things and creating new materials.”

Finally, Mg. Francisco López, academic of the Dept. of Biology and director of the Laboratory of Research and Technological Innovation for Science Education, LIITEC, emphasized the importance of having knowledge of the various educational applications, new uses of current technological devices and the infinite possibilities they provide. “Technology is designed to improve people's lives, but it also has negative or disturbing aspects that it is important for an adult to always know and understand.”

This activity is organized by the Directorate of Liaison with the Environment and Extension in conjunction with each of the areas of each workshop carried out: Faculty of Engineering, through the Architecture and FABLAB workshops; Faculty of Sciences, through the Chemistry, Astronomy, LIITEC, Dentistry and Physics workshops; and Faculty of Humanities with the Comics workshop. In addition, the Sports Department of the DGAE, the Conecta ULS project and Radio Universitaria FM.

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Source: DIVEULS