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We have participated on the 10th Edition of the UB Science Festival

On May 10th, we participated on the X Science Festival of the University of Barcelona, where we had the chance to share science from our three research lines with elementary and high school students. We held three workshops:

1. “Colors in Nature: What Are Pigments and What Functions Do They Have in Plants?” In this workshop, students were able to understand the main pigments found in nature and where they are located within plant tissues. They were also able to learn how to extract pigments from common leaves, flowers, and fruits in order to identify them and understand their functions.

2. “Ecosystems and Climate Change: Salinity and Drought Stress. How Can We Detect if a Plant is Stressed?” Participants were also able to quickly identify plant stress through direct observation of leaf stomata in microscopic preparations and simple measurements like the chlorophyll index using SPAD.

3. “Fruits and Their Flavor: Why Do They Get Sweeter as They Ripen?” Students were able to learn about the different stages of fruit ripening and measure the starch content of various fruits at different ripening stages to see when the highest accumulation of sugars occurs using the Lugol’s test.

It was a dynamic and highly enjoyable day. The young students gained new knowledge, and as always, we had the opportunity to learn from them as well!