For fifteen days, the Mosquito Alert educational team has been on a tour around Spain taking science and citizen science to schools and municipalities in the Ciudad Ciencia programme. It has been two weeks full of learning, curiosity and discoveries in the open air, in which students have become sample collectors, science communicators and young researchers. From Ubrique to Miranda de Ebro, passing through Coria and Cangas de Morrazo, among others, we have had the pleasure of giving workshops and classes with a difference.



Laboratories in the classroom and citizen science in the playground




During these days, we took practical sessions to the classrooms to learn about the life cycle of the mosquito. From tiny tiger mosquito eggs to flying adults, larvae and pupae, the students observed each stage with binocular magnifying glasses and a lot of curiosity.


And not only in the classroom: in many schools we were able to go out and explore the playgrounds, gardens and corners with water in order to look for alive mosquito larvae and apply what we had learnt. And the surprising thing was that in most cases we found them!











The educational tour




The tour started on 25 March in Ubrique (Cádiz), with a laboratory session at the Colegio Sagrado Corazón de Jesús, and ended on 4 April in Miranda de Ebro (Burgos), with the young people from IES Fray Pedro de Urbina exploring the life cycle of the mosquito.


Along the way, we stopped in La Solana with CEIP Romero Peña, in Villarrubia de los Ojos, with two centres participating: Dominicas Villarrubia and IES Guadiana, in Ocaña, with IES Alonso de Ercilla, in Coria, with CEIP Virgen de Argeme, Cangas de Morrazo in CPR Casa de la Virgen.


These workshops have not only been an opportunity to learn about mosquitoes, but also an invitation to look at our environment differently, with a more committed and informed perspective.


Because science is not only in the laboratories: it is also in the courtyards, in the fountains in the park or in the bucket of water left on the terrace.


Have you already checked if there are larvae in your backyard?