A campaign to verify health literacy was held in Krasnoyarsk on Saturday, August  17. A little more than 200 Krasnoyarsk citizens checked their scientific literacy at three locations of the educational campaign "Medical Laboratory". The largest number of participants gathered at the central site at the Krasnoyarsk State Medical University. These were mostly families with children who came to the “Quantorium” children's technopark. The creative space of Yushin Brothers was chosen by advanced youth.

The format of the campaign is traditional for the “Open Laboratory”, which has been taking place for the third year already. First, the participants fill out a questionnaire, and then the master performed by a scientist, analyzes the questions and announces correct answers. According to the organizers, the purpose of the campaign is not to identify the smartest, but to ensure that the participants learn something new. “It’s even good if a person does not know the answers to the questions, ”says Yegor Zadereev, coordinator of the campaign in Krasnoyarsk, head of the scientific communications group of the Krasnoyarsk Science Center SB RAS,“ after all, he will hear the correct answers fr om the scientist and in this situation he will most likely remember it”.
The participants with the highest number of points at each site received prizes from the federal partner of the campaign - Alpina Non-fiction Publishing House, and city partner - the Stomatology Center “Astrea”.

This time, two Krasnoyarsk residents answered correctly all the Lab's questions. The most erudite were a student of the 10th grade of school No. 151 Alisa (the organizers did not have time to find out her last name and asked if she reads this news, to contact them) and a cartographer of  “LLC Krasnoyarsk Geoarchaeologiya”,  Alexey Rudakov. Alexey is a repeated participant in the regional summer school, which is well-known in the city. But he hasn’t graduated from the university when studying at the faculty of art history. Then, the faculty was disbanded. He says that he would love to finish his studies, but he does not know wh ere and at what department he can do this now. If only because his current work, which was preceded by several years of self-education, is a synthesis of several specializations at once, which are not found in any faculty together.
Here is what Alexey said concerning his participation in the Medical Laboratory: “An interesting event made it possible for us to recall the time of participation in all kinds of educational competitions in the late 1990s. The event was well organized. The questions did not seem complicated at all, except for those belonging to the "front line" of research - since even a person who is constantly interested in a topic is rarely able to cover all news in science.
I would like to wish “Open Laboratory” a lot of participants of different ages and background, like in a "total dictation". Moreover, the popularization of science in Russia, in my opinion, has been experiencing a significant crisis in recent years, taking into account the abundance of misconceptions, and sometimes intentional hoaxes which are broadcast, for example, on YouTube channels. In these conditions, it is extremely important to popularize scientific knowledge and increase the level of public confidence in scientific information. ”

Interestingly, the number of people who scored the maximum did not include doctors or scientists with degrees. However, there were candidates and doctors of sciences at the competition sites. “Once again I was convinced that at such events, if you don’t dig deep, but follow simple logic, the result will be better,” says one of the participants, Ludmila Burakova, a Candidate of Biological Sciences, a research associate at the Institute of Biophysics of the Krasnoyarsk Science Center SB RAS.

One of the innovations of the Medical Laboratory, which continues a series of thematic campaigns to verify scientific literacy, is the appearance of an adult and children's questionnaire. A special children's form designed for everyone who already knows how to read, in a joking poetic form dispells some popular myths about children's health. As a result, even many adults volunteer to try this questionnaire. Now, dozens of city residents know that ice cream during a sore throat is more likely to be beneficial; if you walk without a hat in winter, then you will not get meningitis; and a “nettle burn” is best removed with water and soda.

“I am really proud of the Krasnoyarsk people. First, we showed the best turnout throughout Siberia, and perhaps in the country, if not to take Moscow into account.  “I am very pleased with the large number of families with children. Young people came in pairs. Famous people in the city were spotted at the sites. It is obvious that the verification of scientific literacy has become both a family and a fashionable form of leisure. We will try to further continue in this direction with other thematic laboratories as well as the campaign "Open Laboratory" on the verification of scientific literacy in the country, which is held on the day of Russian science in February. The next event will take place very soon - October 12th. It will be a chemical laboratory. The choice of chemistry is not arbitrary. The year 2019 is declared by the United Nations as the International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements. It is the 150th anniversary of the great discovery of Dmitry Mendeleev ” - Yegor Zadereev shares his immediate plans.
  
You can test your scientific literacy and take the test online at http://openlaba.com/. There you can see the announcements of the next events.