IES Martín Rivero students win national science competition

Tour > Education

Students travel to Molina with teacher Marcos Naz // Mercedes Avila

The 35th Ministry of Universities Young Researchers Competition awarded students a project to dispose of used cigarette butts.

Laura Caballero

Students from the Martín Rivero Institute won first prize in the 35th Young Researchers Competition organized by the Ministry of Universities for their project “Smoking bricks: application of small bricks to dispose of used cigarette butts”, made from mushroom mycelium, which included the participation of Rafael Gamarro and María Vargas, with Adrián Vacas, from IES Gran Capitán de Córdoba.

The project focused on bioplastics, made from lemon and bitter orange peels, also won third place in this competition, carried out by Paula Lara (Ronda) and Irene Campos (Córdoba). In addition, the Fábrica de Ideas was honored for the number of years it has brought students to this competition. It is worth mentioning that three years ago, they won third place, with the graphene project; last year they were second for the Reciclatinta project, and this year they achieved first place.

Thanks to this first award, the students have the opportunity to go to Poland, in September, to present their project at European level. “Thinking about it makes me dizzy, but I am very happy that the work is yielding results, and above all because the students deserve it and it is their job, although we guide them, it is their ideas,” says Mercedes Avila, a teacher at the center.

They won’t be the only ones travelling to Europe to showcase their projects. Mercedes Avila and Markus Naz have been selected to go to the Science on Stage fair, taking place in Turku (Finland) from August 12 to 15, which will be attended by 300 European teachers. Specifically, Avila and Naz will present their project on bioplastics and recyclables to teach atoms to the blind.

“There was a lot of work behind this, but we are very happy that since Marcos Naz has been here, we have created a network of centers with a research track, which we call the Factory of Ideas (FAB-IDI). They get these awards from the consortium of this project,” says Avila.