Ercros promotes scientific vocations among young students

Within the framework of Ercros' collaboration with the Experiment Challenge in the classroom programme, Sergi Fuster Pardo, plastics R+D technician at the Vila-seca II factory, acted as godfather in an experimental class with four second-year secondary students from the Santa Teresa de Jesús school in Tarragona.

Equipped with a gown and goggles, the students experimented over the course of two sessions with how a non-Newtonian fluid (in this case a mixture of corn starch and water) can behave as a solid or as a liquid, depending on whether a force is applied to it. Once the experiment went well, the students videotaped the whole process and finally wrote a comprehensive report.

The Experiment Challenge in the classroom is a programme that uses experimentation and the scientific method to bring science closer to secondary students. Learning is based on “learning by doing”, which fosters student motivation and generates deeper knowledge, and is done by scientific sponsors linked to the academic and business world.

The programme is promoted by the Rovira i Virgili University (URV) and has the collaboration of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), the Catalan Institute for Chemical Research (ICIQ), the Institute for Agri-Food Research and Technology (IRTA) and the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (Fecyt); and the support of the country's main chemical companies, including Ercros.