Abstract:

In general, there is little interest in Mexico on the diffusion of scientific knowledge among the population, and especially among children. Most of the information aimed at promoting of science in the country is originated overseas. Even though many of these materials are of good quality regarding contents and production, these are not easily absorbed by mexican children, mostly because of different cultural backgrounds, since these programmes are made especially for children in their home countries.
Thus we have developed a series of short-duration programmes aimed at presenting science to children using the background of a tale in which Lux is the fairy who, by means of simple dialogues drives children into thinking about daily experiences in a scientific way. The explanations are made simple, and many times by recurring to analogies which are already known to small children.
Lux is a girl who loves science. She lives inside a magical box that opens to the touch enabling children to enter and discover the wonderful world of science. The programme makes use of stimuli to which children are easily responsive such as surprise and curiosity. Thus, children can approach science easily, out of simple questions, eliminating the risk of making them feel that explaining nature is a complex task.
Another interesting aspect of this work is the reduced resources with which it was made. The programmes were preproduced at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), produced and postproduced at ITESM, Campus Cuernavaca, and will be transmited by the local TV channel, supported by CCyTEM. This programme will start appearing on TV in 2011. For the time being these can be accessed at the web page of UNAM Morelos.
Work partially supported by UNAM and ITESM.

Keywords:

Communication of science, education, children.