Engagement with children and the empowerment of diverse publics was also a strong issue discussed this Monday afternoon at the #PCST2014. In session 1 of “Science Communication empowering scientists and the public”, Paola Rodari, from SISSA Medialab in Trieste, Italy, talked about the project’s activity and its main findings.

In the project, kids are contacted in Children Centers and the ones who get interested make the bridge between the project and their parents - so they become aware of what it is about.

The activities include letting them act as journalists: they’re guided by their own curiosity to cover science topics and talk about what they feel is important. Educators are more like moderators of this big conversation around scientific curiosity. “The project is more successful than we expected. By being at the backstage of media production, they also became more critical about the TV they see and the information they consume”, Paola says.

Paola also said that scientific curiosity gave birth to other kinds of questioning, such as gender issues in science. “Kids see themselves as change agents. And they are. They have a lot of capacity and we should empower them more”, she concludes.