The University of Oviedo opened this morning, at the Main Hall of the Historical Building, the 4th edition of the Summer Scientific Campuses, an initiative in which more than 1,8000 students from the 4th year of Secondary Education and 1st year of the Baccalaureat from all around Spain will participate. The Rector, Vicente Gotor, and the general director of Universities and Research of the Principality of Asturias, Miriam Cueto, welcomed the first batch of Baccalaureat students who will participate in the Asturian campus.

The Summer Scientific Campuses are an initiative developed by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports and the FECYT, with the collaboration of the Obra Social La Caixa, and organized by the Universities. The programs will take place all throughout July at 16 Campuses of International Excellence of the country. The University of Oviedo will host 4 groups of 28 students each.

The objective of the Summer Scientific Campuses is to awaken the scientific vocation of this young Spanish students, providing them with a unique experience by getting them in touch with scientific research. Each student participates in a scientific project designed by the university teachers in collaboration with the teachers from Secondary Education. The participants will get to know the principles of scientific research: the scientific method, working techniques, the gathering and analysis of the data. More than 50 researchers of the University of Oviedo and six Secondary Education teachers will make up the teaching team that will participate in this edition.

The University of Oviedo joins this initiative with four projects aimed at the dissemination of science: the Geological Twitter, a workshop on the Scientific Bases of Crime Investigation, an approach to Electronics: design, build, shoot and... win! and an activity titled The Language of Cells

More women than men

66% of the the participants of the 2013 edition of the Summer Scientific Campuses are women, while 34% are men. In terms of autonomous communities, the majority come from Andalusia (21%), and a high number from Valencia (14%) and Madrid (11%). The Asturian academic institution will welcome this year 112 students from all around the country. The program also includes visits to the old town of Oviedo, communication activities, as well as other leisure and sports activities that make up an attractive offer for the participants. Before finishing their stay, the students will present the results they had obtained during their participation in the projects. This year, a total of 239 Secondary Education and Baccalaureat students from all around Asturias applied to participate in the national program of Summer Scientific Campuses. The selection, based on their academic record, will allow 27 of these students to participate in the experience in national universities.