For the younger generation

MARVEL proposes activities for the young generation, such as summer camps, activities proposed in school as well as activities during open doors or events for the general public.

For high school students

Since 2018, MARVEL is organizing a summer camp for high school students, Des atomes aux ordinateurs, à la découverte de la programmation scientifique, where they can learn the basics of programming to study materials, with half of the seats reserved for young women. With the support of the EPFL high-performance computing team SCITAS, and led by Michele Ceriotti, a team of six MARVEL volunteer postdocs and PhD students lead the students through a basic introduction to Python to applied exercises on topics such as the cellular automaton, molecular dynamics and machine learning. During the week, the students have also visits to laboratories and on the EPFL campus. As feedback, the participants enjoy attending the camp and are motivated to learn more about the topic. They appreciate the interaction with the teaching assistants and their help. They value the opportunity to apply programming to real physical phenomena.

In schools

MARVEL participates to Thematic day for high school students organised by EPFL, e.g.

These are great opportunities for MARVEL researchers to share about their research and to learn to adapt their message to non specialists. On the other side, the students can discover more about the topics such as physics, chemistry, materials science and computational research within their own four walls with conferences and feature demonstrations.

For girls and young women

To awake the interest of girls and young women for scientific careers, MARVEL is a partner to special events organized at EPFL and in Switzerland, for girls only or with half of the seats for girls.

For the public at large

MARVEL takes all the opportunities to showcase its research, sharing and explaining it to the public. In recent years, MARVEL
presented a stand with 3D movies and fun experiments to show how novel materials are created by computational design: at EPFL Scientastic (2018) and at the EPFL Open House part of the celebrations for its 50th anniversary (2019).

For the younger generation 

A special workshop related to MARVEL fields for young girls 7 to 10 years old was developed and took place on three Wednesdays in January 2015. The goal of this workshop, entitled Diamant, alu, caoutchouc, ils sont fous ces matériaux~!, is to let young girls discover the world of material sciences having fun. Another similar workshop for slightly older girls (11 to 13 years old) will be proposed on one week during the summer holidays in August 2015.

Boys will not be forgotten from MARVEL educational plans and MARVEL will participate at events for the general public.

Some hands-on experiments and demonstrators need to be developed for such events, as well as for activities that could be proposed more generally for schools. A collaboration with the scientific mediators of the Science Outreach Department at EPFL is planned.

Primary school and high school students

The group leaders participate in many programs already in place at our institutions for facilitating the involvement of school children in science activities.

  • For example, at IBM and PSI as well as at EPFL and ETHZ, high school students are invited for one-day visits, and EPFL and ETHZ have touring Science buses.
  • At EPFL, several group leaders actively participate in a special day, Oser tous les métiers, designed to remove gender barriers and expose primary school aged children to a variety of professions.
  • In addition, professional outreach experts at our institutions organize special events such as Treffpunkt Science City at ETH Hönggerberg, the Nuit de la science in Geneva.
  • We will continue to participate in these programs, and where necessary the NCCR will provide support for their further expansion.

The installation of a 3D visualization facility at EPFL will be particularly useful for outreach activities towards these groups.