Within the 5th Cientificamente Provável program, 95 students from 9 to 19 years old (from 5th and 12th grade), from Agrupamento de Escolas de Aveiro and Escola Secundária da Gafanha da Nazaré, developed several activities framed by ongoing or concluded DigiMedia research projects. These activities took place at the Department of Communication and Art, from 7th to 9th of February, and involved several DigiMedia members and PhD Students: Maria Ferreira, Liliana Vale Costa, Mónica Aresta, Patrícia Oliveira, Telmo Silva, Cátia Silva, Pedro Reisinho, Cláudia Ortet, Raquel Cabral e Francisca Lourenço.
5th grade students developed activities related to the projects Gamers4Nature and FlavourGame and experienced PresenceVR. Secondary school students developed 3 activities: Playmutation, PresenceVR and Immersive Web Environments. Additionally to this, the students involved in the school newspaper developed activities related to the project TRUE.
The Cientificamente Provável program aims to promote and stimulate the development of concrete actions that allow, among other modalities:
a) the displacement of scientists and researchers to schools;
b) the displacement of students to research centers;
c) the promotion of activities related to science, in all its domains, carried out by researchers, namely through visits and projects monitored and validated by research centers;
d) the participation of students in research center projects;
e) the promotion of scientific dissemination.
The Playmutation activity aimed to develop digital games to learn about viral infections, deepening skills in game design and development as well as health education.
In the PresenceVR, students were invited to explore four genres of content – game, simulation, virtual environment and a 360º video – using Meta Quest 2 virtual reality glasses, in order to understand whether the genre of content presented in virtual reality is a factor that influences the sense of presence.
TRUE is a support platform for building digital school newspapers. Teachers and students from both schools participated in this activity, as well as students from the Moliceiro newspaper club, learning how to build, mediate and publish news in the online newspaper.
In the Immersive Web Environments activity, students were invited to enter an immersive classroom that contains several resources, in this specific case, about José Saramago and his work Memorial do Convento. Represented by avatars, students interacted with each other, with teachers and with 3D objects displayed in the environment.
Within Gamers4nature, students learned to program in Scratch and developed fun and educational games on the theme of combating microplastics on our planet.
As for FlavourQuest, students had the opportunity to play a hybrid serious game (which combines a digital component with a board game).
