Ponteciencia fills UVigo with young scientists

A school science fair can sound small. This one isn’t. Ponteciencia turned UVigo’s Pontevedra campus into a public stage for student research on May 9, with children, teenagers, and families explaining experiments to judges, visitors, and each other. That matters because the whole point isn’t just to win a prize — it’s to practice doing science in public. ### What happened in Pontevedra? Ponteciencia 2025 opened Friday, May 9, at the Escola de Enxeñaría Forestal on the Universidade de Vigo’s Pontevedra campus. The fair brought together primary-school classes, secondary students, vocational students, and families for two days of project presentations, stands, and hands-on activities. One local report described it as the culmination of work done across the school year, not a one-off exhibition. ### Who was presenting? The field was broad. One report said about 30 projects arrived from around 15 educational centers and seven families. Another preview put the total at 34 projects from 23 research teams across the different categories. The primary-school side alone included 10 schools and 14 investigations, while secondary, baccalaureate, and FP students competed in the research awards section. (lavozdegalicia.es) ### Why does the UVigo setting matter? Because this wasn’t tucked into a classroom corridor. It happened on a university campus, inside the forestry engineering school, which gives the event a different feel — closer to a real conference than a school open house. UVigo’s Pontevedra campus is a full university site with multiple faculties and schools, so putting children’s projects there helps connect early science learning to a visible academic environment. (lavozdegalicia.es) ### What kinds of categories were there? Ponteciencia splits the work into a few lanes. There’s “Ciencia no cole” for school projects, “Ciencia en familia” for projects developed at home, and a research-prize section for older students under the theme “Homenaxe á muller investigadora.” This year also added something new — a prize from the Centro Oceanográfico de Vigo for the best marine-science investigation. Four projects were competing for that one. (uvigo.gal) ### Why add a marine-science prize? Basically, it ties the fair to a very local reality. Galicia’s coast shapes the region’s economy, environment, and daily life, so a marine-science category gives students a concrete way to connect research with the world around them. The new award came through the Centro Oceanográfico de Vigo, part of the IEO-CSIC network, and organizers framed it as a way to get young people thinking about the oceans as something foundational, not distant. (lavozdegalicia.es) ### Is this just about kids showing posters? Not really. The interesting part is the defense. Students weren’t only displaying results — they were presenting to juries and explaining how they got them. That pushes the event beyond “look what we made” and into something closer to the real habits of research: asking a question, testing it, organizing evidence, and defending the conclusion in front of other people. (farodevigo.es) ### How big is the public side of it? Pretty big. Alongside the judged projects, organizers scheduled open-access activities for visitors across astronomy, biology, sports science, cooking, electronics, physics, chemistry, photography, mathematics, and more. So the fair works on two levels at once — competition for participants, science festival for everyone else. (lavozdegalicia.es) ### Why does this matter beyond one weekend? Because it shows what a local STEM pipeline actually looks like before university or industry ever enter the picture. Children learn that research is something they can do, families get pulled into the process, schools get a public deadline, and the university becomes a visible next step instead of an abstract place. That’s a stronger outcome than any single prize. ### Bottom line? Ponteciencia is basically a bridge — from classroom curiosity to public science. (lavozdegalicia.es) And for a couple of days in Pontevedra, that bridge was crowded.