- Perrine Poisson
24 Hours of Science, the Québec Science Festival
24 Hours of Science is the Science and Technology event in Québec. During this special day, we celebrate science with hundreds of activities across Québec! This year, the 24 Hours of Science was held from Friday, May 12th at noon until Saturday May 13th, including overnight hours. The 12th edition had the following theme: Science and Fiction. More than 420 activities took place in universities, museums, schools, libraries, science centers, parks, etc. This science festival is recognized and supported par UNESCO since 2010; it is also part of the Science Odyssey for the last 2 years. Various types of activities were on the menu: Animations. workshops, lab visits, open houses, lectures, bars des sciences, scientific competition and challenges, film projection or unallocable special activities! All areas of scientific disciplines are represented. For the 2017 edition, we consider that 30 000 people (students and general public) had the opportunity to participate in activities throughout the province. The scientific culture network in Québec responded with great enthusiasm and more than 200 organisations and institutions held activities for the event.
There was something new this year. We now have an international component with these contests: Plume de science, a scientific journalism contest and Le Défi Génie Express, une pomme à la mer, a challenge for the students. In this challenge, Le Défi Génie Express, une pomme à la mer, 8 to 15 years old students had to design a floating system that would allow for an apple to float above water, without touching it. French speaking students took up the challenge with participants from Senegal, Brazil, Poland, Madagascar, Ecuador, Thailand, Morocco, Denmark, Spain, Iran, and of course Québec!
An activity for the general public was also offered live from France: A science movie on the impossible. The projection of the short film and following discussions among young researchers were relayed live on the 24 Hours of Science Facebook page.