SESAM21 · Sense, Science & the Magics of the Planet Pantry

Sense, Science & the Magics of the Planet Pantry

SESAM 21 addresses the important objectives of the NIGHT call that is to increase the interest of young people in research and science, increase the understanding of research’s role in society among citizens including young people and their families and to counteract the stereotypes that exists about research and researchers. With these in mind the SESAM 21 set out in collaboration with six schools across Denmark, their teachers and a team of mentors from research based companies and from university to develop an ambitious final NIGHT event on the last weekend of September 2021. The SESAM 21 undertaking was split in two streams across Denmark: an east and a west pillar. The development of the SESAM 21 took place from May 2021 until late September. During that period of time the schools with teachers and pupils and with the support and assistance from a team of mentors, developed learning stations, workshops, prototypes and other installations and instruments all related to some kind of research and science challenge. The overall thematic topic of SESAM 21 was the climate driven call for transition of the food, agricultural and natural eco system. The SESAM 21 used a bottom-up participatory approach, where students worked in projects supervised by teachers and research mentors in order to prepare something that illustrated a research challenge that could be communicated and explained to visitors at the final NIGHT event. Understanding of research role among citizens in local communities, families, students and teachers is important in a knowledge intensive society. Furthermore it is important to understand that grand challenges such as the one posed by the climate crisis requires research. By working in particular with young people we make a contribution to a long term development of the knowledge economy, we attract more people to higher educations and we make a contribution to a better understanding of research and science. We further make a contribution to an understanding of how different actors of the knowledge triangle can work together to create innovation and to development of a student driven type of science communication where the needs of young people play an important role.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union