The students Iván Hervías, Marcos Ochoa and Sergio Pascual have won the Google Science Fair 2012 in its Age category (15-16 years old) with the project on the study of microscopic life in freshwater. And is that the project: What is inside a drop of water? They told us in Fogonazos, it is a project with many months of travel and has always been led by Professor Antonio Guillén and his students of the Battle of Clavijo de Logroño Institute. The work done has allowed to create a base of images of thousands of photographs and perform several experiments to know the behavior of microbes in the aquatic environment, for example, and as seen in the video below, what type of microorganisms are more frequent according to the purity of the water in which they are found.
Prizes like this are what we need not as an exception but as a rule. I cannot believe that there is no capacity in all the schools and institutes of Spain to work with determination and imagination developing scientific concern among students.
It seems to me that the work of Professor Antonio Guillen With his students he is fantastic and ensures the creation of scientific vocations among his students, in addition to that he will also have explained how the methodical work works, the effort and how he responds to the recognition of the community.
The jury, formed by important scientists, has selected this project as the best in its category. Apparently they showed up student proposals from more than one hundred countries. And the three students traveled to California, in the United States, to receive the award and took the opportunity to visit Google offices.
As indicated in the contest rules, the Spaniards will receive a scholarship worth $ 25,000 (about 30,000 euros), a personalized LEGO prize and digital access to Scientific American files for the educational center where they study.
On the Google page there is a lot of information about the project and additional content to know more details about these kids and their scientific discoveries. Apparently, and as I read in Fogonazos, the kids changed recess by using the microscope! In my opinion it is a success of Antonio Guillén, the teacher, who from this moment we leave the doors open to tell us how well he is having fun teaching and disseminating science to children in the classroom and in the laboratory.
