Students from all over Spain compete live in the VI National Hi Score Science Contest
Students from all over Spain compete live in the VI National Hi Score Science Contest
“Why do we see veins with a bluish tone?” This is one of the winning questions of the VI National Hi Score Science contest. An outreach project that aims to bring science to the youngest through a game of questions and answers about science for mobile devices and computers.
Hi Score Science is projected not only as a game of questions and answers about science, but wants to go further and increase the scientific culture and the interest of users in science, explaining what is behind the new scientific advances. The project is developed from two research institutes, the Instituto de Síntesis Química y Catálisis Homogénea (ISQCH) and the Instituto de Nanociencia y Materiales de Aragón (INMA), both joint centers of the CSIC and the University of Zaragoza, which allows to include informative explanations of the scientific reality behind each of the answers. In addition, Hi Score Science encourages users to participate in the project by collaborating with scientific content of the game and rewarding them with a pass and a trip to the National Final held at the CSIC Headquarters in Madrid, a visit to one of the CSIC museums and technological gifts for the individual prizes.
The 6th National Hi Score Science Competition will take place on April 21st at the Assembly Hall of the CSIC Headquarters located in Madrid, at 117 Serrano Street, with the presence of Carlos Closa, Vice President of Organization and Institutional Relations of CSIC, José María Fraile, Director of the Institute of Synthesis and Homogeneous Catalysis and Pilar López García-Gallo, Director of Communication and Public Programs of the National Museum of Natural Sciences.
The day will have two parts, in the first will be the awards ceremony in the content category, i.e. secondary school students who have sent us their questions, and that in this edition has had the participation of more than 200 teams from all over Spain, who have sent us their more than 4,000 questions, which once reviewed and edited by a scientific team of 50 researchers are published in the game with the name and the school that sent the question.
In the second part of the session, the VI national face-to-face contest will take place in which students from the different Autonomous Communities will test their scientific knowledge by answering questions such as “Why doesn’t the Moon fall towards the Earth?” or “Where would we see the Sun rise if we were exactly at the Earth’s geographic south pole?” “What would happen to a carrot left submerged in water with salt for some time?”
The session will be available to follow via the competition’s YouTube channel @HiScoreScience.
An outreach project in constant movement with international recognition
The Hi Score Science project was born in 2016 in response to the need to adapt outreach activities to the world of the youngest, belonging to the digital generation, which is currently focused on video games and new technologies. This project has been advancing year after year, going from being a regional to a national project and reaching a more disadvantaged audience such as young patients admitted to hospitals, prisons, rural inhabitants and adults, a group usually far from outreach activities that allow them to participate actively and not as mere observers.
The project has been awarded the first prize in the XVIII Edition of the Science in Action program in the category “Science Teaching Materials in Interactive Support” (IBM Award), has received the D+i TOP seal, a national recognition that rewards the best inclusive science outreach projects, has been nominated twice for the Third Millennium Awards and has just received the runner-up in the category of best outreach project in the First Awards for Science Outreach and Citizen Science of the CSIC.
Hi Score Science, is a game very well rated among users with a score of 4.5 out of 5, a score much higher than other similar games and currently has more than 40,000 downloads worldwide, mainly in Spain and Asia. The game has been presented in the different autonomous communities, in videogame, scientific and informative fairs, reaching 100,000 people.
The free and ad-free game, Hi Score Science, is available on Play Store and Apple Store and on PC, Mac and Linux (www.HiScoreScience.org). All information about the project and how to compete in the different categories is available at www.HiScoreScience.org.
A scientific team behind Hi Score Science
The Hi Score Science project has been developed between two research centers, the Instituto de Síntesis Química y Catálisis Homogénea (ISQCH) and the Instituto de Nanociencia y Materiales de Aragón (INMA), both joint centers between CSIC and the University of Zaragoza.
The project counts with the collaboration of other UCC and science museums, such as the CSIC Deputy Vice-Presidency of Scientific Culture (VACC), the museums: Nacional de Ciencias Naturales de Madrid, Instituto Geológico y Geominero de España, Museo Elder de la Ciencia y la Tecnología, Museo Eureka, Casa de la Ciencia de Sevilla, CIUTAT DE LES ARTS I LES CIÈNCIES, Casa de la Ciencia de Valencia, Natural Sciences of the University of Zaragoza and the Planetarium of Aragón, the University of Cantabria, the University of Alcalá, as well as the city councils of small towns such as Benasque and the Comarca de Calatayud and the CASIO Educational Unit #CientíficasCASIO.
