Outreach

INAOE's 2025 Science Baths Begin

Santa María Tonantzintla, Puebla, March 7, 2025. Building telescopes, camera obscuras, and rockets, generating electricity, and learning about physical phenomena through experiments with water and soap bubbles are some of the activities of the 2025 Science Baths of the National Institute of Astrophysics, Optics, and Electronics (INAOE), a center coordinated by the Secretariat of Science, Humanities, Technology, and Innovation (Secihti).

During this period, the INAOE Science Baths will be held at 13 different locations in the cities of Puebla, San Andrés Cholula, and Atlixco. In fact, the activities began last Saturday, March 1. With a creative and enigmatic name, the Science Baths are a scientific outreach initiative of INAOE that emerged in 2005 with the goal of bringing science closer to children between six and twelve years old in a fun way. Each science bath consists of a short talk on a scientific topic and a related hands-on or experimental activity.

The name "Science Baths" is a way of designating the day of the week on which they take place: Saturday, since in Mexico it is popularly said that Saturday is a day for bathing.

The Science Baths for the first half of the year will be held in San Bernardino Tlaxcalancingo, Tonantzintla, San Francisco Acatepec, San Antonio Cacalotepec, Coronando, San Francisco Totimehuacan, the Regional Museum of Cholula, the House of Science in Atlixco, as well as at the Puebla Reading Council, the Huitzil Collective, and the Gilberto Bosques Library Park in the city of Puebla.

Among the activities offered to children are the workshops "What is Color?", "Follow the Trail: Computational Thinking and Teamwork with Ants," "A Journey Through the Universe," "Curiosities with Light," "Microscopy to Observe Atoms," "Aqua-Light: Magic in Water," and "Chromatographic Auroras," to name a few.

The speakers are distinguished researchers, technicians, students, and educators from INAOE.

It is important to emphasize that the organization of the Science Baths has the support of the Puebla Ministry of Culture, the municipalities of Coronango and San Andrés Cholula, the Puebla Reading Council, and the Atlixco Science House.

Admission to these activities is completely free. The meeting point is at 11:00 a.m. For more information on dates and locations, visit https://www.inaoep.mx/vinculacion/actividades-de-divulgacion