A 13-year-old Zaragoza student, winner of the Hi Score Science National Absolute League
Inés Junquera Lanaspa, a first year ESO student from IES Tiempos Modernos in Zaragoza, has won first place in the II National Absolute Hi Score Science League. The league, which began last September and has lasted until June, has had a monthly online tournament in which users from all over Spain, all ages, educational levels, from primary school to university professors and from all over Spain, have competed with their mobiles and computers to prove that they are the wisest in science.
During the different matches, the participants had to answer questions such as why the Moon does not fall towards the Earth, why does the Sun turn red at sunset on clear days, or the skin of which fruit is flammable?
The winners include workers and researchers from different universities, high school teachers, secondary school and university students from Aragon, Madrid, Valencia, the Canary Islands and La Rioja: Ángel Madurga, Daniel Muñiz, Juan Luis Pueyo, Jorge Rodrigo, Cristina Lej, Javier Julián, Esperanza Pérez, Fernando Rived, Zulema Araguas and Raquel María Suárez.
The winners will receive trophies for the first three classified and prizes such as reflex cameras, instant cameras, sports cameras, exhaust juices, scientific Casio calculators, lamps, helmets, loudspeakers, etc.
After the success of this second league season, the organisers of the project, the Institute of Chemical Synthesis and Homogeneous Catalysis (ISQCH) and the Institute of Nanoscience and Materials of Aragon (INMA), both joint centres of the CSIC and the University of Zaragoza, have confirmed that the third league will start next September, which, like the previous editions, will have monthly tournaments and will be open to users of all ages and locations in Spain.
What is Hi Score Science?
Hi Score Science is a game, free and without advertising, of questions and answers with several options about science, which aims to go further than traditional games and increase the scientific culture of users. As a project developed between two research institutes, the Institute of Chemical Synthesis and Homogeneous Catalysis (ISQCH) and the Institute of Nanoscience and Materials of Aragon (INMA), CSIC-UNIZAR, it includes informative explanations of the scientific reality behind each of the answers, encouraging users’ curiosity about science. In addition, the project aims to make the users themselves feel part of the project, as they are the generators of the scientific content. To this end, national competitions have been set up at various levels: youth (14-18 years old), senior (over 18) and junior (under 14), and an online National Absolute league has been created.
The free game Hi Score Science is available on Play Store and Apple Store and on PC and Mac (www.HiScoreScience.org). All information about the project and how to compete in the different categories is available at www.HiScoreScience.org.
An informative 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 members of the digital generation, who are currently focused on video games and new technologies. This project has progressed year after year, going from being a regional to a national project and reaching a more disadvantaged audience such as young patients in 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 first prize in the 18th edition of the Science in Action programme in the “Science Teaching Materials in Interactive Support” category (IBM Award), has received the D+i TOP seal, a national award for the best inclusive science outreach projects, and has been nominated twice for the Third Millennium Awards.
Hi Score Science is a highly rated game among users with a score of 4.5 out of 5, a much higher score than other similar games, and currently has more than 30,000 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 Hi Score Science project has been developed between two research centres, the Institute of Chemical Synthesis and Homogeneous Catalysis (ISQCH), and the Institute of Nanoscience and Materials of Aragon (INMA), both joint centres between CSIC and the University of Zaragoza.
The project has the collaboration of the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology – Ministry of Science and Innovation, and its Network of Scientific Culture Units UCC+i, the Deputy Vice-Presidency for Scientific Culture of the CSIC, and the project casio científicas.
16/06/2021
