The German chemical company has developed its experimental activities known as Teens' Lab in Spain, specifically in Tarragona. Over 450 fourth-year high school students have been protagonists and participants in science workshops held in the laboratories of the ETSEQ (Escola Tècnica Superior d'Enginyeria Química) at Rovira i Virgili University, in collaboration with the URV Divulga project. "Our Kids' Lab has an older brother, the Teens' Lab, which is aimed at young teenagers who have their first contact with the subject of chemistry at school. We are pleased to have brought this initiative, originally from our parent company in Germany, to Tarragona. We are the first center worldwide to adapt these activities outside Ludwigshafen, to bring them closer to our territory," explains Benjamin Hepfer, director of the BASF production center in La Canonja, Tarragona. These workshops have been resumed after a 3-year suspension due to the pandemic.
This is a BASF project aimed at students in the last cycle of high school that is based on different groups of experiments. In the "Substance Labyrinth," students study and learn about the characteristic properties of materials and discover how to distinguish and identify them using physical and chemical research methods, which may appear identical. In these workshops, they also determine the pH and density of unknown substances in the laboratory and experiment with properties such as solubility, fermentation capacity, and flame color.
The first edition of these activities and workshops began in 2014, although they had to be canceled due to the pandemic in 2020, 2021, and 2022. More than 2,400 high school students from Tarragona, Reus, La Canonja, Constantí, and Les Borges del Camp have participated in these activities. After being scientists for a few hours, the young people visit the BASF production center in La Canonja.