Many small pharmaceutical experts at SciFest 2023

SciFest, Uppsala University's own science festival is back at Fyrishov. Three days in September, thousands of curious children, school students and adults take part in interesting lectures, exciting research and, not least, loads of fun hands-on activities. At the Faculty of Pharmacy exhibition stand, Arman from the Tiunda school has just won a prize in the competition "Fill a dose correctly".

“This is my first time at SciFest and it's great fun. I have learned a lot about vaccines and cells. It was also fun trying to fill boxes with the right medicine, even though they mostly looked like sweets,” Arman laughs before noting that the bottle with the Faculty of Pharmacy emblem that he will bring home will be perfect for training.

Since the doors opened, Stand 36 has been packed with potential pharmaceutical experts. The station where kids get to make their own drugs – once again suspiciously similar to pills in the Saturday candybag - became such an instant favorite that the pills ran out the first day. But the possibility to step into a virtual world of drugs and to build molecules in giant format ensure that the queues remain long.

“I have learned what happens when larvae eat compost and then become fish food. Right now I'm building a molecule that looks like a medicine, then I'm going to try Virtual Reality and see what a medicine does within the body, and so far everything is super exciting here at SciFest,” says Alvina, visiting the science festival with her mother.

In the Faculty of Pharmacy exhibition stand, researchers, teachers and students assist with technology and answer questions about cells, molecules, drugs and everything else that comes into the minds of the visitors as they enter the world of pharmacy. For several of the very youngest children, it is the first interaction with science, but certainly not the last:

“It is really inspiring to see how enthusiastic all the children and young people are at SciFest. And above all, it is great to hear so many elementary school students talk about how much they enjoy chemistry. Several of them have impressive knowledge of both atoms and proteins, so who knows, perhaps we'll see them again in a few years as students at our faculty,” says Ulrika Rosenström, Associate professor at the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry.

FACTS SCIFEST

• SciFest is a science festival with a wide range of workshops, shows, competitions, scientific meetings and talks.
• The first Uppsala University SciFest took place in 2012. Today, SciFest is co-organized by Uppsala University and SLU.

LEARN MORE

• SciFest online

text & photo: Magnus Alsne