Training innovators of sustainable development: a cornerstone role of science dissemination events.

Innovation, an essential driver for sustainable development, has contributed significantly to the growth and development of 20th century society. Advances in science and technology have vastly improved living standards and our quality of lives and increased the industry's productivity and competitiveness.  At same time, the rapid growth of industrial production has increased energy and natural resources consumption. The resulting impacts on the environment have already caused various threats to ecosystems with endanger such as global warming and excessive use of energy, water, and land resources. In recent decades, all teaching and training systems in European countries have launched innovation actions to adapt, increasingly complex changes in society and face the challenge of raising citizen educational levels to improving the triple bottom line: economic, environmental, and social well-being. In the last years, I conceived, designed, and proposed simple experimental interdisciplinary activities, for science dissemination events aimed to discover creative students-enhancing their focused attention- and to engage and inspire teachers in their routine teaching activities as well. Therefore, within the European Researchers’ Night, last year the European Commission introduced the Researchers@Schools actions developed throughout the school year by bringing researchers into schools, allowing teachers and students to exchange views with them on important current topics such as climate change, sustainable development, health, or the diet. I’ve used in particular natural food or flowers to present easily abstract scientific concepts and to reinforce the idea that chemistry, physics, and biology are present in the everyday life of all of us, even if many are unaware of it. Both education and outreach and game-based learning are gaining attention as a means of engaging citizen in understanding of science but also as a vehicle for crowdsourcing problem solving relating to molecular structure in the form of puzzle games engaging many non-scientist gamers in solving molecular structures contributing to several scientific publications. Hoping to involve a new generation of creative citizen scientists participating in the process of new discoveries for sustainable development, a proposal for collaborative learning, to teach science concepts and train innovators was devised.