"Scientist goes to School" - IMpaCT joined ITQB NOVA and Oeiras Town hall initiative
The project IMpaCT joined the ITQB NOVA and Oeiras town hall for an initiative with young students from Oeiras municipality. The initiative "Scientist goes to School" ("Cientista vai à escola")” pretends to show and explain to the young students what is all about being a scientist and what the daily work is.
On November 26th, two scientists from project IMpaCT, Sara Silva and Bruno Salgueiro, visit a 3rd grade students’ class from Alto de Algés elementary school.
Our scientists told them the story on how their work goes in the laboratory, how everything starts with a question, followed by planning of experiments, preparation of solutions, follow protocols and analysis of the results.
The activities went from playing with the 3D printed protein structures, colouring drawings of different protein structures, understanding some solution properties, as pH and energy transfer, to salt crystals formation.
The top hit experiment was to test different solutions' pH using water from boiled red cabbage. The purple-dyed water was added to different solutions, from lemon juice, vinegar, cleaning products, and tooth paste, changing to a different colour.
All 22 students were very engaged and willing to do all the experiments, and very curious to know how they could repeat some of the activities with their families and friends.
IMpaCT ITQB NOVA team members: Sara Silva, Post-doc, and Bruno Salgueiro, Research Fellow
pH experiment with red cabbage and coloured salt crystals
"Scientist goes to School" ("Cientista vai à escola") at Escola Básica do Alto de Algés