During the Radboud Kids Science Festival, pupils from various primary schools in Nijmegen will visit the urban island of Veur-Lent. Researchers from Radboud University will treat the pupils to a glimpse inside their world of Island-related research through a series of fun and educational activities. On Tuesday 9 May, sixteen classes from Nijmegen and surrounding area are coming to urban island Veur-Lent to carry out research like real scientists. The event is being organised to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Radboud University. The complete programme can be found at www.ru.nl/100. During Radboud Kids, more than four hundred children will take part in the eight activities led by scientists from several professional fields. They will be allowed to immerse themselves in the study of plants and animals on the dyke, the area's Roman history or a Nijmegen court case. Two of the Radboud researchers who will be working with the children are human movement scientist Femke van Abswoude and communication scientist Anne Sadza. They will give the pupils a mobile phone so they can make a film to motivate their peers to take more exercise. The films will later be shared in the class. Motivating vmbo pupils This assignment is the result of a project at vmbo schools, where the researchers had pupils think about movement campaigns. ‘Vmbo pupils don't move enough,' Van Abswoude explains. ‘In recent years, all sorts of interventions have been developed to combat this problem, but they don't seem to be effective enough. We can keep saying that physical exercise is healthy, but more is needed. So we want to find out how this target group would motivate itself.’ Sadza and Van Abswoude are researching which forms of communication or campaigns are in line with the world as experienced by vmbo pupils. In focus groups, the vmbo pupils consider what motivates them to get moving. The scientists, with their teams, look for ways to have the pupils reflect on their own behaviour, and come up with their own suggestions for campaigns, events or other ways of spurring on their peers to take more exercise. Influencer for a day Van Abswoude and Sadza translated their research project into a short activity for Radboud Kids. The concept is actually the same as the one for the vmbo schools. ‘The only difference is that we have less time, so we help the children a bit more, for example by establishing in advance that the form they will use is making a video.’ The researchers are curious to see what ideas the primary school children will come up with. ‘Adolescents rarely feel like moving, while children are still intrinsically motivated to do so,' says Van Abswoude. Sadza adds: 'So the children will probably have a different message.' The communication scientist expects that the children will enjoy the assignment. ‘At that age - 9 or 10 years old – there are extra interested in mobile phones, maybe because they've just been given one or because they sometimes watch TikTok. They can now briefly take on the role of an influencer.’ The scientists hope that this activity will help give the children an idea about the substance of research. ‘But above all, we want them to get to work enthusiastically and creatively,' says Sadza. ‘And we will also be able to see straight away whether this work method is effective. If so, we might be able to organise something for children more often in the future. And it's nice if they can also learn a little bit about considering what a campaign is trying to tell you and how you would tackle that yourself.' The science education hub Radboud Kids is organised by Radboud University's Science Education Hub (WKRU), a collaborative partnership between the university and regional primary schools. WKRU makes scientific knowledge accessible to primary school education, to promote the inquiring minds and researching attitude of children and of teachers, present and future. Staff help Radboud researchers translate their studies into lessons for children, for example. And they help schools to design education around science and technology. WKRU is one of the eleven science education hubs in the Netherlands.