During the first weekends of January (January 17 and 24), the “Life in the City of the Future” project, as well as the Nature Explorer and Maker’s Red Box sessions, took place at the Szeged Community House.
In the Nature Explorer Club sessions this semester, we launched an ornamental fish breeding project within the framework of the program supported by Katalin Karikó. Throughout the semester, groups consisting of high school and primary school students from Szeged Groups 1 and 2 will work on breeding various fish species. During the sessions, we aim to breed Four-belted barbs, Guppies, Swordtails, Neon tetras, and Leopard danios. Each fish species we intend to breed has different environmental needs and breeding techniques, presenting us with a challenging task that will help us expand our knowledge of chemistry, physics, and biology during the school year. To assist us during the project, we are using Google’s artificial intelligence, named Gemini, for problem-solving.
We began breeding our first species on the second project day, starting an easy breeding experiment with Rainbow guppies. Gemini provided the ideas, while we handled the calculations and measurements. We filled our first spawning aquarium with T-1 gravel substrate and 22 liters of chlorine-free, day-old water, then added plants and set up the equipment (filters, air pump, heating element, lights). Following this, we adjusted the physical and chemical parameters of the water. We set the pH, hardness, and temperature, and once everything was arranged, we introduced our first guppies: three females and one male. In the coming weeks, we will feed our fish red mosquito larvae and monitor when offspring can be expected. At our next session, we will launch a live camera feed for observation of the aquarium. Péter Mikics, Mentor, Szeged Group 2
Within the framework of the Superhero Project, the children were introduced to poetry this time. First, we discussed the characteristics of poems together, and then everyone attempted to write a stanza. Inspired by the given opening line (“Oh, how I’d love to be a superhero”), some “super” poems were born. After lunch, we continued writing the origin stories of our own superheroes, which the team had started on a previous occasion. In their imaginations, the young heroes visited a “Superhero Festival” for a day and wrote short reports about it—for instance, which other superheroes they met there and what kind of super-gadgets they were able to try out. The task sparked the children’s imaginations; they all wrote inventive and cheerful stories about the imagined festival. Izabella Patyi, SZ3
Gallery: https://www.csanyialapitvany.hu/portfolio_page/elet-a-jovo-varosaban-januari-projektnapok/