OVERVIEW
Implemented under the ASEF’s Asia-Europe Classroom project, AESOTOPE was an eight-day science enrichment programme held in tandem with the second edition of the Genoa Science Festival in 2004. It gave participating students and teachers a chance to experience some of the international scientific and social events of the Genoa Science Festival.
Organisers of AESOTOPE made an international call for science proposals in early 2004, tapping on national education agencies and science departments to promote AESOTOPE to high schools, and to officiate applications for the pre-conference selection of science projects to be represented at the AESOTOPE. Thirty-two applications from 16 ASEM member countries were received, and the organisers, together with a Committee of Scientific Advisors, shortlisted 19 teams for the programme. Each team comprised a teacher-advisor and a maximum of two high school students aged between 14 and 17.
The 19 short-listed AESOTOPE projects were further grouped into four themes: Water, Energy, Nature, and Technology. They were showcased at the Le Meraviglie della Scienza (or the “Marvels Of Science Exhibition”), as part of the Genoa Science Festival 2004. The AESOTOPE organisers also picked three projects to receive its AESOTOPE Awards, and these were:
– “Multi-Functional Remote Control Disinfection Car” (China)
– “The Mediterranean Sea And Its Different Stories: Sulla Rotta di Omero” (Italy)
– “Turning Prawn Pond Sludge Into A Fertilizer” (Malaysia)
Apart from participating in the Le Meraviglie della Scienza, students engaged in a multimedia classroom activity where they took physics lessons from CDs produced by the Italian National Institute for the Physics of Matter (INFM). They also played math games conducted by the Kangaroo Network, an Australian education network.
