©Clara Azevedo

During the visit to the Pavilion of Knowledge, the Prime Minister of Portugal reiterated the importance of the Recovery and Resilience Plan for building a better future for the new generations: We are starting today to build our future. And the Ciência Viva School is a symbol of our strategic vision, with the commitment to knowledge as the basis of a more innovative, prosperous and fairer country".

Based on this objective, Portugal has two quantified objectives in mind: "We want to go from 11 to 20 Ciência Viva schools. And want to go from 237 to 650 Clubes Ciência Viva*. We want to build a new generation, more motivated towards science, committed to knowledge, more creative, more innovative and capable of promoting an increasingly prosperous country". Since 2010, and continuously, the Pavilion of Knowledge has been consolidating its own and pioneering model in Europe of a school-museum, under the name of Escola Ciência Viva, through institutional partnerships with groups of schools, associations of parents and municipalities. 1st cycle of basic education students have classes in a dynamic and living space, making the most of its resources: exhibitions, experiences, activities, laboratories and meetings with scientists, along with the curricular contents of this level of schooling.

Ciência Viva - National Agency for Scientific and Technological Culture created the Ciência Viva Schools Network to promote science education in the environment of a science center, in collaboration with universities, municipalities and research centers, with an educational program that combines the teaching of all areas of the national curriculum with the learning programs of museums and science centers. The network currently comprises 11 Ciência Viva Schools distributed throughout the national territory: Bragança, Gaia Biological Park, Aveiro, Alviela, Estremoz, Vila Nova da Barquinha, Mamarrosa (Institute of Education and Citizenship), Lisbon (Pavilion of Knowledge), Proença-a-Nova, Coimbra and Lagos.

* Clubes Ciência Viva are operating in schools as open spaces for contact with science and technology, for education and for the general access of students to scientific practices, promoting the experimental teaching of science.