Three professors at Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, have secured a total of 6,000 euros in European funding for science outreach activities as part of the European Inventor Network, an initiative of the European Patent Office. Amélia Dionísio, Rui Galhano dos Santos, and Roger Picken will conduct educational activities with school-age children, covering topics such as the extraction of mineral raw materials, the utilisation of biomass and waste, and the properties of numbers illustrated through knots in ropes.

“For me, doing science also means sharing it”, argues Amélia Dionísio, adding that “research truly has an impact only when that knowledge reaches society”. Rui Galhano dos Santos agrees, stating “I don’t believe [a researcher’s] work ends when we publish a scientific article or present results at a conference”. “It’s also our responsibility to explain to society what we do, why we do it, and the impact of that knowledge”, he says.

Aimed at 1st and 2nd cycle students, the Técnico professor has designed an activity that guides children in discovering and identifying minerals and rocks (using real specimens). Participants will then be challenged to “mine” these geological resources with LEGO® pieces that represent the raw materials. Using a stopwatch, they will measure the time required to extract blocks of similar volumes made from different-sized pieces.

“This helps students understand, from an engineering perspective, how the size and distribution of materials can influence the difficulty, efficiency, and energy required for their extraction, processing, and beneficiation”, explains Amélia Dionísio. Through this activity, students “learn that rocks are composed of various minerals, some resources are harder to obtain than others, and using various materials helps reduce waste and promote a more responsible use of the Earth’s resources”, she noted.

Rui Galhano dos Santos aims to introduce high school students to scientific research. “Throughout the activities, students will work with different types of biomass and waste and observe their transformation into bio-oils and biochars, which are products of greater value than the original raw material”, he explains. During this activity, two technologies relevant to his research will be explored—solvolysis, where biomass is converted in the presence of a solvent under controlled conditions, and pyrolysis, where the raw material is heated in the absence of oxygen, resulting in liquid, gaseous, and solid products. “The aim is to demonstrate in a practical way how a material initially considered waste can be transformed into a resource with potential for new applications”, concludes the professor.

At the heart of Roger Picken’s project is a presentation based on Conway’s rational tangles, in which participants use two strings as if they were “calculators” to explore the connection between rational numbers and topology. The initiative will involve about a hundred 9th-grade students from a secondary school in Benfica, Lisbon, including a class of deaf students. The initiative aims to encourage students to explore mathematics in a playful way, while introducing them to some of its applications and seeking to spark future interest in scientific fields.

The European Inventor Network grants are funded by the European Patent Office to support activities that bring children and young people closer to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and stimulate curiosity, creativity, and a spirit of innovation. The goal is to support activities aimed at inspiring children and young people to explore science, technology, and engineering, as well as innovation and entrepreneurship.