During February, for the second year in a row, dozens of female researchers from PRBB centres visited primary schools all over Catalonia on the occasion of the Day of Women and Girls in Science, which is celebrated every year on 11 February.
The aim is twofold:
- to introduce children to science from an early age, so that they understand that science is everywhere and that anyone who is curious and passionate about understanding how the world works can be a scientist.
- to make women scientists and their contributions visible and using the Park’s female researchers as role models.
This year, more than 50 female researchers have signed up for the initiative – and some male researchers have chosen to join in to actively support their colleagues. So many schools wanted to take part that many had to be put on a waiting list.
“They asked many interesting questions. Each class in the school has a name and I was able to take advantage of their interests (explorers class, robots class…). They found the stories I told them about several female scientists very interesting and at the end all the children gave me a hug! It was very exciting.
Volunteer researcher
As last year, many of the talks focused on explaining what science is, how it is done and who does it – all through drawings made by the children themselves. In response to the question “What is science?”, the children, mostly aged between 7 and 10, had to draw and write what they thought. Experiments and explosions won by far, but there were also mentions of fun, teamwork… and even more complex concepts such as hypotheses or Erlenmeyer! But there were also some stereotypes to work on…
“I really enjoyed participating in this activity on a personal level and I think the children were very involved and enjoyed it. Some of the drawings showed scientists as gentlemen with weird and crazy hair and through this activity they changed that perception”
Volunteer researcher
The school visits are still continuing these weeks, but the feedback from those already completed has been excellent, both from the volunteers and the schools.
It is therefore clear that there is a growing interest from schools in these activities and that children enjoy and learn from them.
Next year we will do it again and continue to break stereotypes and bring women’s science into schools.
If you want a small sample of one of these conversations, listen to the audio chronicle of Sandra Vial’s visit, from the Hospital del Mar Research Institute, to class 3A (fourth year) of the Miquel Martí i Pol school in Sabadell (in Catalan).
