On February 8, on the day of Russian science, about a thousand Krasnoyarsk citizens took part in the international educational campaign “Open laboratory”. Its format is similar to the Total dictation, but unlike the usual one, it checks scientific literacy. This Lab is already four years old. Since the first year of the campaign, Krasnoyarsk has been one of the main cities of the large-scale popular science event.

This year, the Lab took place at 11 venues in the city, including the Krasnoyarsk Science Center SB RAS, three universities: federal, medical and basic, children's technological park “Quantorium”, interactive museum of science “Newton Park”, several city libraries, Information Center for Nuclear Energy, and Regional Palace of Pioneers.

Famous Krasnoyarsk scientists from the Krasnoyarsk Science Center SB RAS, Siberian Federal University, Siberian University of Science and Technology, and Krasnoyarsk State Medical University, by tradition, became the presenters at the venues. So, in Akademgorodok the presenter was a Doctor of physical and mathematical sciences, Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation, Sergey Gennadievich Ovchinnikov. One of the features of the Lab this year was the regional form. The questions in this section were proposed by the presenting scientists.

“We thought it was a great idea to tell the participants about local science as well. In this format, science becomes closer to people, because we are not talking about some abstract discoveries or facts, but about what we did right in Krasnoyarsk. Yes, and scientists took this innovation with pleasure. They also enjoy telling about their work. So we are planning to extend this part of our campaign. Our scientists have enough discoveries to come up with tricky questions about them,” says Yegor Zadereev, coordinator of the Open Laboratory in Krasnoyarsk, head of the scientific communications group of the Krasnoyarsk Science Center SB RAS.

This year many there were many parents with children and couples at the venues of the event. Initially, the campaign was expected to be family-targeted and the previous year a special questionnaire for the children was introduced. As a result, the age of the participants at many venues was 5-7 years.

This year there were a lot of parents with children and couples at the venues. The action was initially promoted as a family, and since last year, a special children's form has also appeared among the tasks. As a result, at many locations the age of the participants was from 5 to 75 years.
The official results of the campaign will be announced a little later, but thanks to the peculiarity of the Lab, when immediately after writing the test the presenters explain and present the correct answers to the tasks for the participants, the preliminary leaders are already known.

This year, a 3rd year student of the Siberian Federal University Alevtina Matveeva has had the highest score in Krasnoyarsk, 25 out of 26 possible. “I was very inspired by the general atmosphere during the Lab - unanimity of people who are interested in science. I really liked the question from the field of biology, where the correct answer was the option "Science does not know this yet." In fact, I came to him logically, as the other options were incorrect. I am studying at the Department of Biophysics - a field at the intersection of physics and biology. It seems to me that the fact that much remains unknown to modern science should inspire future young scientists, ” Alevtina shares her impressions.

The main idea of the campaign is not to test any literacy, but to introduce the participants to modern science. Many of the Lab's questions debunked deep-rooted myths, or presented the results of today's research. This format of providing knowledge is very different from the usual teaching at school or university.

The participant who scored the most points on one of the venues, an 11th grade student Diana Denisova, says that after school she is planning to enter the Medical university. Most of all, she liked questions from the field of biology. For example, information about people-chimeras was unexpected for her. In their body, different cells contain different genetic material. Diana also found valuable information on the positive aspects of particular fish species. It was Krasnoyarsk scientists who proved that saury is one of the most valuable fish as far as risk-benefit is concerned. But the most difficult for Diana were questions from the field of physics and astronomy.

This year there were many prizes for participants from federal and regional partners. Books from the Alpina Non-fiction publishing house, the Komsomolskaya Pravda publishing house, and prizes from the Regional Science Foundation were given not only to those who scored the most. Moreover, the youngest and oldest, as well as those who scored the least points were also rewarded. The next Lab is waiting for Krasnoyarsk residents in spring. Since last year such campaigns have been held not only on the Day of science, but also on a smaller scale events during the year.