DUVI 11/11/2025
Naiara, Máximo, and Alicia recently discovered how a lung works using a model made with balloons, and they were able to see a water fountain created with two bottles and some hoses that work thanks to the action of inflated balloons. They also filled a glass with milk and food coloring, which then disappeared when they introduced a cotton swab with a drop of soap. Through these activities, they experimented and learned in a fun way concepts related to surface tension, laminar flow, density, and viscosity, using experiments such as a hydraulic crane operated with syringes or an air-powered car.
Naiara, Máximo, and Alicia are the first three pediatric patients at Álvaro Cunqueiro Hospital to participate this year in the project Learning Through Play in a Hospital, coordinated by Eduardo Suárez Porto, professor and researcher in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Thermal Machines and Engines, and Fluids at the University of Vigo, in collaboration with Christian Gil, Jesús Vence, and Marcos Conde—all faculty members of the School of Industrial Engineering and researchers at CINTECX—as well as researchers from the Galicia Sur Health Research Institute. “Learning Through Play in a Hospital is a Service-Learning (ApS) project, recognized in the 2025/2026 Service-Learning Project Call within the framework of the 2030 Agenda and its SDGs,” explains Eduardo Suárez, who highlights that after five years of developing this activity, a stable collaboration agreement has been signed this year between the University of Vigo and SERGAS.
Students who become teachers and learn through play
Nearly 50 third-year students of the Fluid Mechanics course in the Biomedical Engineering degree will take part in the project this academic year, which focuses on demonstrating and conducting experiments with pediatric patients at Álvaro Cunqueiro Hospital.
In the first session, held this Monday in the hospital classroom of the Vigo medical center, nine students entertained while teaching experiments related to fluid mechanics to three pediatric patients. These patients also had the opportunity, together with the UVigo students—turned into their teachers—“to build together, using water, oil, an effervescent tablet, and a little food coloring, a lava lamp. It was one of the most popular experiments, which they asked us to repeat, and it allowed each of them to take home their own lava lamp built by themselves,” explains Eduardo Suárez.