Final Report Summary - WONDERS07 (Welcome to Observations, News and Demonstrations of European Research and Science 2007)
The WONDERS project was organised by Euscea, the European Science Events Association, together with EUSJA, the European Union of Science Journalists. Associations, and EUN, the European Schoolnet. The WONDERS project consisted of a carousel of science, which is described below and of a discussion game called 'Decide' with rules for the debate and the possibility to upload the results into the internet. Participants of this game were schools in the cities of the participants of the carousel of science. The project was started at a launch event in Berlin and ended with a grand finals event in Lisbon, both at the capitals of the European Union (EU) presidencies in this half year.
Many of these festivals have joined together for a first time ever in the European science festival named WONDERS, an acronym for 'Welcome to observations, news and demonstrations of European research and science'. The main motto of WONDERS is 'look closer'. This underlines the scientific method: not just watch the surface, the first impression, but go deeper, think more about it, all in all: look closer!
WONDERS was designed to inspire European science communicators to work together and to continue this activity in future years. How did they join? The festival organisers exchanged their science shows in form of a European carousel of science: one festival sent science shows to the next festival.
The carousel of science is an exchange of interactive, lively, personal two-way-communicating science presentations between different science festivals. One festival sends presentations of its own to the next festival, which in turn again sends other presentations to another festival and so on, until the last festival send its presentations again to the first festival, closing the circle or the carousel of science.
Here, the presentations are ordered according to this carousel of science, starting with the presentations of the University of Strasbourg in the West of France, which sent them to Tartu, which is the university city of Estonia. The festival from Tartu, organised by the AHHAA centre, sent their presentations to Dublin in Ireland and so on, until the organisation of Ciência Viva in Lisbon closed the carousel by sending its self-made holograms to Strasbourg.
The project WONDERS is the European Science Week 2007, funded by the European Commission under the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6). Euscea, the European Science Events Association, is the European organisation for science events and it is the organiser of WONDERS. Nearly hundred such events have evolved all over Europe, from Cyprus to Iceland, from Hungary to Portugal and more are on their way. Their importance is immense; science communication events are major means of creating interest among the youth, an inspiring dialogue and a basis for future European competitiveness.
Many of these festivals have joined together for a first time ever in the European science festival named WONDERS, an acronym for 'Welcome to observations, news and demonstrations of European research and science'. The main motto of WONDERS is 'look closer'. This underlines the scientific method: not just watch the surface, the first impression, but go deeper, think more about it, all in all: look closer!
WONDERS was designed to inspire European science communicators to work together and to continue this activity in future years. How did they join? The festival organisers exchanged their science shows in form of a European carousel of science: one festival sent science shows to the next festival.
The carousel of science is an exchange of interactive, lively, personal two-way-communicating science presentations between different science festivals. One festival sends presentations of its own to the next festival, which in turn again sends other presentations to another festival and so on, until the last festival send its presentations again to the first festival, closing the circle or the carousel of science.
Here, the presentations are ordered according to this carousel of science, starting with the presentations of the University of Strasbourg in the West of France, which sent them to Tartu, which is the university city of Estonia. The festival from Tartu, organised by the AHHAA centre, sent their presentations to Dublin in Ireland and so on, until the organisation of Ciência Viva in Lisbon closed the carousel by sending its self-made holograms to Strasbourg.
The project WONDERS is the European Science Week 2007, funded by the European Commission under the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6). Euscea, the European Science Events Association, is the European organisation for science events and it is the organiser of WONDERS. Nearly hundred such events have evolved all over Europe, from Cyprus to Iceland, from Hungary to Portugal and more are on their way. Their importance is immense; science communication events are major means of creating interest among the youth, an inspiring dialogue and a basis for future European competitiveness.
