18th PRO Science event gathers over 3,000 attendees

This year’s large-scale event was called Lectures and Fairy Tales and was dedicated to the 220th anniversary of Kazan University.

The project unfolded in two zones of the second building of KFU. The main zone hosted a scientific entertainment program for children. A separate lecture program was hosted in nearby lecture rooms for adults, including topics like child rearing, education, dieting, video games, and many more.

In the natural science cluster, guests listened to a master class “Plant propagation, or the art of creating a green corner” by Nikita Stepanov, Assistant Lecturer of the Department of Botany and Plant Physiology of the Institute of Fundamental Medicine and Biology, got acquainted with the developmens of the Laboratory of Radio Physics, learned about new materials for sensor tech and biomedical applications.

“I did not know that you can propagate plants with roots, I used only the method of propagation with leaves. The fact that it is necessary to add sand to the soil is a discovery for me,” said Elvira Mulyukova, who together with her 14-year-old son has been attending PRO Science at KFU since the project started.

Special interest was piqued by the IT-cluster, where visitors could pass a real fingerprint examination, make a VR-examination of a crime scene, etc.

Interestingly, the adult zone was also in demand among the younger generation. Polina Aniferova, a student of Lyceum No. 177 in Kazan, attended the event with her friends. She said that she had already had time to undergo fingerprinting, watch a master class on indirect heart massage, and watch physical and chemical experiments. By the way, Polina plans to get higher education in medicine and considers KFU as one of her primary choices.

The lecture “Secret Luminescence, or How to Catch the Feather of the Firebird?” by Maxim Pudovkin, Senior Researcher of the Youth Research Laboratory of Hybrid Optical Sensors of the Institute of Physics, was attended by Timur Minnebaev, a 1st year master student of this institute.

“Actually very interesting, and not to say that only for children – the threshold is higher. I also had time to see the stand on luminescence (in the natural science cluster – ed.). The event is fascinating. There are a lot of people, to be honest, I didn’t even expect it. In general, I want to see a lot of things, because the stands are interesting,” he shared.

In conversation with journalists, many noted the medical cluster. This year the guests of PRO Science had an opportunity to undergo free ultrasound examination of neck vessels. Despite the fact that the space was provided mainly for adults, a master class on cardiopulmonary resuscitation attracted young guests. They could also try their hand at an endoscopic operating room simulator here.

“I haven’t done stitches before. This is new for me. I am very impressed, feeling joy and delight as a child,” said third-year student of the Institute of Mathematics and Mechanics Arina Terentyeva. “I am interested in medicine. I think this is my unrealized dream.”

It should be noted that the speakers of the project were exclusively expert scientists of Kazan Federal University, which was a novelty of this season.

Igor Guryanov, Associate Professor of the Department of Romance and Germanic Philology at the Institute of Philology and Intercultural Communication, gave a lecture entitled “Why do modern children read more than their parents? The philologist talked about the reading process, modern texts, how reading is influenced by the type of personality perception, and children’s literature.

It is believed that modern children basically do not read books – their attention is focused on smartphones and computers. But in fact, this is not true. Now children read more, and much more, just the nature of texts has changed somewhat.

“If before we lived in the era of the finished text, when you read a book, and that’s it, then today, in addition to the main book, very often literature grows various such spin-offs, fanfics – a whole universe is created, and the artistic world expands to huge limits. Children do read fiction. In general, we live in a world of hypertext. The text does not end, it flows into another and so on. It starts with chat rooms and ends with Telegram channels. In general, I can say that now a person who cannot read cannot survive in the modern world,” Guryanov said to journalists before the beginning of his speech.

The philologist talked about what influenced the evolution of reading, how to work with meanings through creolized texts, and the role of memes in modern reading. According to him, the perception of creolized texts depends on social consciousness.

“When we scroll, we don’t feel the boundary. If everything is clear with a book, we turned the page and a new page has begun, in the case of digital text it often happens that we scroll too much and the text has gone backwards, and we need to look for boundaries again,” the expert said.

It should be noted that Guryanov’s lecture was full of visual examples and recommendations. For example, the educator advised those who study foreign languages to read literature in the target language, and not necessarily classics. You can train the language on modern fiction or detectives.

Another speaker of PRO Science was Ivan Kiyasov, a nutritionist, Deputy Chief Medical Officer for Development, Quality and Digital Medicine of the University Clinic, Associate Professor of the Department of Bioecology, Hygiene and Public Health of the Institute of Fundamental Medicine and Biology. His lecture was titled “Improper Proper Nutrition”.

In particular, the issues of evolution of human lifestyle, balanced diet, digestion process were touched upon. Talking to the audience, the expert debunked the stereotype that calorie deficit is a direct path to weight loss. Kiyasov also talked about the phenomenon of fractional nutrition.

“Vitamins are highly hyped,” said the doctor. “But they should be taken only as prescribed by a doctor and only if there are deficiencies.”

After the lectures, listeners could personally ask the experts questions. Ivan Kiyasov explained why coffee can be combined with milk and how often one can eat fast food. He himself said that he tends to adhere to the Pareto law (80/20 principle) – only in reverse. 80 percent is proper nutrition and a healthy lifestyle, and 20 percent is an opportunity to indulge yourself.

“You have to feel your body and trust it. No one can tell you anything better than your body,” concluded the nutritionist.

Islam Khabibullin, a KFU alumnus, shared his impressions of Kiyasov’s lecture.

“The speaker is very cool, it is interesting to listen to him. I didn’t want to fall asleep, as it often happens at some lectures,” the guest said smiling.

Throughout the evening those who are older could participate in scientific entertainment – art quiz, metaphorical poker, intellectual economic games, legal chat-bot, and much more.

The general partner of PRO Science was Obshschestvo Znanie (Russian Knowledge Society). The information partners were the children’s TV channel Shayan TV and the newspaper Kazanskie Vedomosti.

In the kids’ zone, the young visitors could pass a series of tests, including some in history, paleography, botany, geography, astronomy, linguistics, arts and crafts, and other subjects, and earn a useful prize – a KFU-branded backpack or a ticket to an innovative audiovisual show.