Science forum, Experience science!

Since 2015, we have been supporting the communication team of the Villeneuve d’Ascq Science Forum, a centre for scientific, technical and industrial culture managed by Le Nord department. Temporary exhibitions, a planetarium, a science “investigation” area and a documentary resource centre are on offer. The Forum also carries out many cultural activities outside its walls.

Through posters and other communication media, we propose to stage scientific experiments and discoveries in everyday life situations, or in sets made of paper. Associating sketches with major discoveries creates a certain poetry and plays down our relationship with science. For example, Darwin is reprimanded because he plays the monkey, Copernicus because he plays with his flashlight and Archimedes because he won’t get out of his bath!

Indirectly, it is the freedom to experiment at the Forum that is put forward. The baseline “Experience Science” supports this idea and positions the Forum as a place of pleasure, discovery and mediation open to all.

The podcast of the project

The team tells you more about the project.
Analysis and anecdotes…in French.

Concept

Imagining, for a brief moment, what the parents of the young Freud, Copernicus or Newton might have said when the latters, with their exploratory spirit, came to question science. “Darwin, stop acting like a monkey” “Copernicus, turn out the light!“… reprimands that may seem reasonable to adults, but when they are overcome can lead to revolutionizing the world. Scientific knowledge comes first and foremost from empirical experience of the world. By inviting children to come and experiment with science, even if it means contradicting their parents, the Science Forum offers them a wonderful opportunity to open up to the world and explore its wonders.