ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Commun.
Sec. Science and Environmental Communication
Communicating Science Matters: Positive Evidence from the BASCOE Study, a quantitative study from Brain Awareness Week outreach activities
Provisionally accepted
Carlos Pita1
Inês P. Silva1Ana Rita Rita Ambrósio Colaço Colaço2Margarida Brotas2
Beatriz Felgueiras2
Beatriz Nogueira2Olga Pires Almeida Spencer Carreira2Olga Carreira3Ana Fragoso Fonseca2Mariana Parreiras Dias Urbano de Castro2
Adriana Margarida Capucho2
Gonçalo Melo2
Fatima O. Martins2
Conceição Calhau2
Gabriela Ribeiro2Sandra Tenreiro2
Hugo Vicente Miranda2
Silvia V Conde2
César Mendes2Cláudia Nunes dos Santos1
Nuno Mendonça2Maria Serrano Nunes4
Nuno Miguel Gonçalves5
Natasa Loncarevic1*- 1NOVA Institute for Medical Systems Biology, NOVA University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
- 2NOVA Medical School, NOVA University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
- 3Gulbenkian Institute for Molecular Medicine, Lisbon, Portugal
- 4Gabinete de Ciencia e Inovação, Direção Muncipal de Educação, Desenvolvimento Social e Cultura, Camara Municipal Oeiras, Oeiras, Portugal
- 5European Animal Research Association (EARA), London, United Kingdom
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Word count: 118 While the importance of science communication and outreach is widely acknowledged, their impact is often overlooked or not measured. To address this question we carried a study aimed to quantitatively assess the influence of science communication and outreach activities on knowledge acquisition and retention by secondary school students during Brain Awareness Week (BAW) 2023 in Lisbon, Portugal from a population of 428 students raging from 6th to 12th grade (6-12 years of formal education). Analysis of pre-and post-event questionnaire data revealed a significant improvement in participant knowledge scores seven days post-activity compared to the baseline. These findings highlight the importance of such quantitative evaluations and underscore the pivotal role of science communication in enhancing scientific knowledge in schoolchildren.
Keywords: impact measurement, Multidisciplinaiy, non-formal education, school - aged children, Science Communication
Received: 09 Oct 2025; Accepted: 13 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Pita, Silva, Colaço, Brotas, Felgueiras, Nogueira, Carreira, Carreira, Fonseca, Urbano de Castro, Capucho, Melo, Martins, Calhau, Ribeiro, Tenreiro, Vicente Miranda, Conde, Mendes, Nunes dos Santos, Mendonça, Nunes, Gonçalves and Loncarevic. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Natasa Loncarevic
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.