“Investiga la investigació” (Investigating the research)

http://www.investigalainvestigacio.cat


This is a programme of popularisation of scientific, technological and humanistic research, directed towards young people and carried out by young people.


ESOF’08, a popular science event this July in Barcelona.


ESOF – 2008, EuroScience Open Forum, will take place this summer in Barcelona. This is a biennial meeting of scientists held in a European city with conferences given by Nobel Laureates and the like.


It is an important event for our country. Some 4000 attendees are expected, among them scientists and executives of cutting-edge technological companies and scientific journalists.
ESOF also has a public dimension, being both social and participatory and is especially directed towards young people. Some of the main objectives are: to try to inform the maximum number of people that science and technology enrich our lives and affect us all; to introduce researchers and their research to a broad audience; and to encourage young people to consider- and undertake- degrees in science, technology and the humanities.


“Investiga la Investigació” (Researching research), a support initiative that is at the same time a pilot experience


As a contribution to these objectives, which are also objectives of the Ministry of Education of the Catalan Government, an initiative has been begun that attempts to publicise the event to Catalan students and their families, popularise and offer a human dimension to scientific research and stimulate participation and collective work.
It is also a pioneer experience because the challenge proposed to the students is to make TV programmes in teams, using the Internet as a working medium.


Students as “scientific reporters”


“Investiga la Investigació” proposes to groups of young people from all over Catalonia to participate (under the supervision of their teachers) and to explain, as journalists, the bases and fundamental characteristics of the research being carried out today by scientists selected from among the participants of ESOF’08. The programmes will also delve deeper into the social dimension of the work and the individual figures of the researching scientists.


Carried out by students, but open to collaboration from anyone


The discourse to be followed by each programme, the details of what is to be explained or asked, fragments of interviews, etc. will be carried out through successive approximation, allowing viewers to see the work as it is being carried out via the programme’s space on the internet. Anyone who wishes to do so may participate by voting, leaving comments or hints, and can even intervene personally in the programme.


Programmes broadcasted on TV from the internet


At the end, with the collaboration of the “Investiga la Investigació” team, the programmes will be professionally finished and given an attractive final format for the audience and will be broadcast on TV from the internet, using the services of TV3 and the Catalan Department of Education.


The “Oscars” of scientific journalism


“Investiga la Investigació” is also a competition, with prizes for the programmes per categories that evaluate the components of the work done (in progress).


6 scientists, 6 programmes, 30 teachers, 84 students


6 programmes will be carried out; each will follow a researcher chosen from among those that are participating in ESOF-2008. Each programme will be carried out by a team made up of 12-16 students from 3-5 different schools (3-6 students from each school) and coordinated by their teachers.


A producer from “Investiga la Investigació” will assist the young journalists


The groups of students, coordinated by their teachers, will be ultimately responsible for the work, though they will not be doing it alone. Just as in the professional world, each programme will have an “executive producer”, who will be a member of the team of “Investiga la Investigació”. This producer will provide the logistical and organisational aspects of the work, making it possible to do things in the order and timeframe necessary and, at the same time, will help with the dynamics of the collaborative work process.

 

Topics to be discussed: research, society, the individual

 

As for journalistic research, each programme will cover:

  • The topic of the research:
  • Problems that are solved or the realities made possible
  • Scientific bases that support it
  • Original elements incorporated
  • The social dimension of the work
  • The situation previous to the discoveries
  • Who will be helped or will benefit from it
  • What will change due to the discovery
  • The figure of the researcher as an individual
  • What type of person he/she is
  • How he/she got started
  • The results obtained by his/her discoveries


Participation of local researchers and experts


The programme will be centred on the figure of the high-level scientist and his/her research, which will be the subject and the main protagonist. However, a large part of the journalistic research will be done with the aid of local scientists and experts, who will provide prior or complementary explanations to the research that is to be explained and to the sociological context in which the results are to be applied.


Models and animations to help explain


With the objective of improving the appeal of the programme and facilitating comprehension of what is being explained, the programmes may make use of models, animations or demonstrations.


These auxiliary elements may be prepared and operated by the young journalists who are preparing the programme, or they may be provided by external collaborators who the youths have asked for assistance.


Aid from “fan clubs”


No one can do everything and do it well. Asking for and offering help are values that “Investiga la Investigació” wishes to emphasise as the educational elements that they are.


The coordinating teachers will encourage the young journalists to ask for help in those aspects that they cannot do for themselves, whether due to lack of knowledge, skills or time.


The schools, both those that are participating in the initiative and those that are not, will encourage the students to participate by creating “fan clubs” that will help those who are carrying out the programmes.


Because of this, each team will be able to count on fans who will participate with comments and suggestions, offering contact with experts or providing audiovisual material to be included in the programme.


Integration into the general activity of the schools


This collaboration will be one of the ways to integrate “Investiga la Investigació” into the general activity of the schools.


With a more formal aspect, the interviews with local scientists, which will have been prepared by proposing and voting on the list of questions, will be broadcasted live to the schools using an online video and will allow for participation via chats.


Collaboration in the evaluation and selection of alternatives


The preparation of the content of the programmes will not have a linear structure. Alternative versions of what is being carried out may be published. For example, two different members of the team can explain the same thing, or can interview two different local scientists with a similar list of questions.


The interviews (which are to be divided into fragments), the explanations of the group’s presentations, the animations and/or the complementary materials will be uploaded to the webpage of “Investiga la Investigació” and the followers will be able to vote for their favourites online.


The value of curiosity and the capacity for communication


The objective of the initiative, which is a pilot experience that could be repeated in following years, is to both help the students to understand certain aspects of science or of the social problems associated with scientific discoveries and to highlight the figure of the researcher in all aspects.
“Investiga la Investigació” would like the students to understand the value of curiosity and communication, that they should want to discover what is hidden behind the things that happen to us every day and to know how to explain it in a clear and pleasant manner.


Media and advertising support from TV3


From the beginning of the process, promotions for audience participation via comments and evaluations will be inserted into regular programming on TV3.


Also with the objective of encouraging participation, in addition to advertising the experience, the entire process of designing and carrying out the reports will be the subject of a special programme, “L’aventura de la curiositat” (The adventure of curiosity), which professional teams will be carrying out at the same time as the youths are doing their work.


The youths’ interviews with the researcher highlighted in their reports will be carried out simultaneously with ESOF and with scientists already in Barcelona. These interviews will be included in the youths’ reports, but will be recorded by professional teams at TV3.

 

Educational workshops for presenting the bases of what the youths will be doing and to help the dynamic of the groups


To help the youths do a quality job, three educational courses on the basic elements of the work will be held:

  • Audiovisual communication
  • Video production 1
  • Video production 2 and multimedia editing


These courses, which will be presential and will be held on Saturdays, will also serve for the teams to meet personally and will thus improve the dynamic of the groups.


The dynamics of the preparation process of the programmes


The call for participation in “Investiga la Investigació” is from 18/2 to 29/2. The selection of the teams and assigning of the reports that each group will do will take place on 9/3.


The teams will work from March to July to prepare the reports and will publish them on the programme’s online space as they are completed. During this time, they will receive help, collaboration and evaluation from teachers, scientists and other youths.

 

These contributions will be useful for offering feedback to the authors of the reports and as a first level of evaluation for the final competition.

 

The work will be organised into three phases:


- The initial part of:

  • documentation
  • selection of the more significant aspects, and those that are of greater interest to the media
  • first identification of the areas to be covered
  • selection of the local researchers and experts that may help in the first phase of the programme preparation

    initial preparation with the participation of members of the local scientific community
  • scripts for the interviews
  • filming the interviewees and the youth presenters

All the material (texts and videos) that is produced will be published on the programme’s space online, which will have a format similar to Wikipedia (generation of shared content) and YouTube (videos, evaluations by the collaborators, comments, etc.).

- Second, more refined, identification of the areas to be covered and the plan to be followed

- Second round of contacts

  • More interviews
  • More filming of the youths as presenters

- Request for collaboration for the models and animations

 

- Contact with the scientific centre of the report. Due to the problems of distance, language and availability of the scientists, the dialogue will be primarily maintained over the internet, using exchanges of text, photos and videos.


- The dialogue with the scientist will include the localisation of multimedia material that he/she may have that could be used as documental support.
The figure of the scientist as a person will be of great importance in the programme and, due to this, shall receive appropriate attention (photos, video, explanations, etc.).

 

- In the final phases of the process, once the school year has ended, a post-production and editing job will be done until the programme is completed and ready to be broadcast.
Awards for the best projects


A combination of popular vote and expert judges (in progress) will evaluate the completed programmes and will present awards in the following categories:

  • Best script
  • Best production
  • Best “special effects” (models or animations)
  • Best presenter


The groups’ fans will also be compensated depending on their contributions.


SCIENTISTS TO BE THE SUBJECTS OF REPORTS IN “INVESTIGA LA INVESTIGACIÓ”

 

  • Aaron Cienchanover – Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2004
    Used to being different, he was interested not in seeing how organisms developed, but rather in how they knew when to stop. Along these lines, he discovered the function of ubiquitin as the “messenger of destruction” in the degradation of proteins that are no longer necessary in the growth process of organic tissues. Aaron began to explore this subject when he was still a student and won the Nobel Prize together with Avram Hershko, who was his professor at the time.
     
  • Richard J. Roberts – Nobel Prize in Medicine 1993
    The son of a mechanic and a housewife, as a child he had always wanted to be a detective, but when he was given a chemistry set, his vocation changed and he then wanted to be a chemist. Although as a student he failed a few exams, his detective spirit drove him to discover the function of enzymes in gene modification.
     
  • Roald Hoffmann - Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1981
    Just like Anne Frank, he spent all of Word War II in a hiding place that he and his mother had built in the attic in the home of some friends. The Nazis killed his father and many of his relatives. He wasn’t able to go to school until he was 8 years old, and he was then sent from one refugee camp to another until he was 10. As the friend of some experts in the first computers, Roald began to take an interest in the logic hidden behind chemical reactions and in the possibility of predicting them using these machines. He defines his webpage as a space between chemistry, poetry and philosophy, and says that the time to become a teacher is when one feels truly useful.
     
  • Marcus du Sautoy –Berwick Prize from the London Mathematical Society 2001
    Since he was young, he has been fascinated by numbers, especially prime numbers, which are considered to be the atoms of mathematics. He is the author of the book The Music of the Primes, a best seller in the popularisation of mathematics. As a good showman, he has a radio programme on the BBC.
     
  • Pedro Alonso – Centre for International Health Research (CRESIB), Hospital Clínic/IDIBAPS, Barcelona
    Each year, malaria kills thousands of people in developing countries and, unlike other diseases, a vaccine has yet to be found that will cure it. It is a disease that affects poor people and that will not contribute great benefits to laboratories, so little attention is paid to it. Dr. Pedro Alonso, who works at the Hospital Clínic in Barcelona and with basic research elements completed by other researchers, appears to have found and is testing a vaccine that may eradicate the disease.
     
  • Tejinder Virdee – Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) - Imperial College of London
    Tejinder, who is today Experimental Physics Professor at the Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN), has always liked to work in the details.
    In the advanced study of sub-atomic particles, experts have predicted the existence of a elemental particle of mass, which it is called Higgs boson. This element will be keu to understand the basic structure of the Universe.
    To confirm or deny the existence of such particle, among other very important experiments, it has been built the LHC – Large Hadron Collider, that Tejinder is helping to set-up at CERN.