The Petits Talents Científics (PTC) program, dedicated to scientific updating and didactic innovation for infant and primary school teachers, reaches its fourteenth edition in Barcelona for the 2026-2027 academic year. The first of the two training courses, each 20 hours long, has already begun this October for teachers of middle and upper primary cycles, focusing on the research of the microscopic world so that students can discover the cellular structure of living beings. The second course, scheduled for January 2027, will be aimed at infant education and early primary cycles, maintaining the same theme.
This initiative is organized by the Fundació Catalana per a la Recerca i la Innovació (FCRI), the Department of Science and Innovation of the Barcelona City Council, and the "la Caixa" Foundation. The program provides pedagogical tools and advice to develop research itineraries, fostering meaningful learning, curiosity, and critical thinking among students.
Since its inception in 2013, PTC has trained 1,299 teachers and involved 32,475 students from 499 educational centers across Catalonia, with local editions held in Barcelona, Esplugues, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, La Garrotxa, Girona, Tarragona, and the Lleida regions.
This year's theme, the microscopic world, allows children to explore a new dimension of reality, discovering a rich and diverse microcosm with a significant influence on daily life. This exploration encourages reflection on the proportions between the visible and the microscopic, and helps understand that living beings are made up of cells, the basic unit of life. The use of optical devices to observe these microscopic life forms also offers an opportunity to introduce the physical and technological principles that underpin them.
The PTC program began in Barcelona in the 2013-2014 academic year, and since 2015-2016, it has annually addressed topics such as matter, the human body, astronomy, relationships between living beings, geology, landscape, light, sound, heat, forces, movement, water, and currently, the microscopic world. The final projects from participating centers will be presented at a scientific congress at the end of the course.
