Team:Unesp Brazil/Public Engagement/Results
iGEM Unesp Brazil
Education and Public Engagement
To achieve our goals, we started the activities by asking the students “What is science for you?”. We had the most diversified answers:
"For me, science is the study of everything, the base from the universe." L, 14.
"Science for me is about people." C, 14.
"Science for me is like a discovery." M, 14.
"Science for me is research for the development of stuff." R, 15.
"Science is difficult to describe, very complicated." G, 15.
"Science is everything the world offers to us." J, 15.
In addition, some students didn't know the meaning and declare that didn't like science, once they had difficulty to understand the subject. Therefore, we started a discussion to show them that science is in everything, including the smell from rains, foods, and technology. This way, at the end of the class, we received the declaration:
"We couldn't like science because it's in everything!" G, 14.
With this in mind, we could continue with our purposes, showing that every person is able to practice science, regardless of the social differences. Considering that, we brought some discussions and debates about the historical devaluation of women in this field, making the students understand the reasons why this happened.
In this part, we could notice the great participation from the student girls, who exposed their experiences inside their houses, school and outside world. As a consequence, we wanted to encourage the search for equality inside and outside science.
In our last meeting with the students, we took our Top Trumps with female personalities from all over the world with different occupation areas. At the end of the game, we asked them to choose their favorite cards, so based on the impact on society, Marie Curie and Wangari Maathai were the favorites.
Furthermore, we did a timeline with influent women in science. The students had difficulty to find these results on the internet, proving the lack of acknowledgment for women in this field.
The scientists in the timeline are not exactly the same that are in our Top Trumps because we wanted to show them many women as possible. The timeline contains the scientists' names, a picture and a brief description of their work. Here is the list of scientists in our timeline so other teams interested in build one can work upon it.
Antiquity
Merit-Ptah (~ 2700 b.C. – 2nd Dinasty)
Enheduanna (~ 2300 b.C.)
Tapputi-Belatekallin (Sec. XIII b.C.)
Teano (582-500 b.C.)
Arete de Cirene (Sec. III b.C.)
Axiothea de Phlius (350 b.C.)
Agnodice (Sec. IV b.C.)
Aglaonice ou Aganice da Tessália (Sec. II or I b.C.)
Maria, a judia (Sec. I a.C.)
Hipácia (350-370 a.C.)
Middle Age
Rufaida Al-Aslamia (~620)
Fatima al-Fihri (~ 840)
Sutayta Al-Mahamali (987)
Mariam “Al-Astrolabiya” Al-Ijliya (Sec. X)
Hildegarda de Bingen (1098 – 1179)
Herrad von Landsberg (1125-1195)
Trotula (Sec. XII)
Rebecca Guarna (Sec. XIV)
Alessandra Giliani (1307 - 1326)
Christine de Pizan (1364 - 1430)
Modern History
Marie Meurdrac (1610 – 1680)
Sybilla Righton Masters (1676 - 1720)
Laura Bassi (1711 – 1778)
Nicole-Reyne Etable (1723 – 1788)
Eva Ekeblad (1724 – l786)
Sophie Germain (1776 – 1831)
Mary Anning (1799 – 1847)
Maria Josephina Matilde Durocher (1809 – 1893)
Rebecca Lee Crumpler (1831 – 1895)
Alice Cunningham Fletcher (1838 – 1923)
Marie Skłodowska Curie (1867 – 1834)
Margaret Floy Washburn (1871 – 1939)
Contemporary History
Bertha Maria Júlia Lutz (1894 - 1976)
Barbara McClintock (1902 – 1992)
Carmem Portinho (1903 – 2001)
Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909 – 2012)
Ana Maria Primavesi (1920 – )
Sonja Ashauer (1923 – 1948)
Maria da Conceição Tavares (1930 – )
Niede Guidon (1933 – )
Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova (1937 – )
Maryam Mirzakhani (1977 – 2017)
To close our activities, we asked the students to answer a simple quiz, in which they could quantify how the project influenced their lives. For all question, 0 is the lowest score and 10 the highest score.
Question: How much did the subject caught your interest?
Question: How much do you believe the lectures were important to you personally?
Question: How difficult was to understand the subjects of the classes?
Question: How much do you believe the lectures were important to you professionally?
Question: How was our teaching?
Besides that, all students answered that they would like to have us lecturing other classes about other subjects.
All things considered, we concluded the perception from the students had suffered some changes, increasing their interest in science. Moreover, our discussions left the girls more comfortable to express their opinions freely. This way, the team hoped that the younger feel motivated to keep their studies even with all difficulties from life. Finally, as experience, the team had the challenge to work in a classroom, trying to transmit knowledge in simple ways, and also, conciliate this work with our academic routine.
To see more pictures of our activities, please click here.
