What is Bazar de las Ciencias?


Science-Shops.

Science-shops appeared in the seventies and they are one of those well-known “interface” instruments (or meeting frames) between universities and the citizenship as regards scientific communication. They appear under very diverse names and formats, adapted to each particular, local circumstances and, in general, associated to university centers.

Their main goals (also varying according to each place) are: to offer scientific and technical information to those members of the society that have difficulties for so having, to find up interesting topics for the community towards which to conduct some researches and to link these researchers with the part of the citizenship that could benefit of their achievements. These three objectives, as we will see, imply another kind of aspects, among the which, for the leonese Science-shop, it is especially interesting that of the students’ formation in scientific procedures and in the popularization of science.

The growing importance of science-shops and the demonstrated convenience of their services has lead to the creation of an European Science-shop Network, as an objective of the last European Plan on Science and Society elaborated in the 2001.

A Science-shop in León: Bazar de las Ciencias.

The University of León, focusing in its objectives of endowing of bigger social content the university dynamics and improving the formative possibilities offered by the different faculties, began, in September of 2001, the steps towards the creation of its own Science-shop. The promotional and development role was taken by a team of students and professors from different faculties, following the procedure of León-Ciencia, of the Institute of Education Sciences. Since the end of 2001, the initiative was presented to institutions, associations and social collectives of the province, at the same time as to professors, students and researchers, receiving from all of them important suggestions that have been taken into account on in the Bazar de las Ciencias basic project.

In May 2002 the project was presented to the grant call of the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology, obtaining by this way a grant that, together with the resources contributed by the University of León, they have made possible to offer this for the year 2002-2003.

General aims.

Social kind:

• To enhance and stimulate the access to the scientific information for the different social collectives in the province of León.
• To find up interesting topics for the community towards which to guide the formative and researching activity in the University.
• Eventually, to serve as a mediator in circumstances where the lack of scientific and technical knowledge imply an obstacle for the democratic behavior of the community.

Formative kind:

• To offer the student situations where to exercise his/her abilities and to achieve those needful habits in the scientific and popularization tasks.
• To facilitate professors and students the inclusion of practice activities with social utility in the habitual formative dynamics.
• To take advantage of university resources as a tool for science and technology teaching for non-university students.

Communicative kind:

• To serve as space for the meeting between community and university (students but also professors and investigators), in order to create a frame for mutual influence.