
A program between friends for Lucas Souza and Karla Karoline, who study together at the Rita de Cássia da Silva State School, in Parque São Jorge in Campinas. They were selected to participate in the 15th edition of Science and Art on Vacation (CAF) and the only reason they weren't one hundred percent satisfied was because they had to separate. Karla will do her internship at the Faculty of Medical Sciences (FCM), and Lucas will go to the Multidisciplinary Center for Biological and Agricultural Chemical Research, the CPQBA at Unicamp, which is located in Paulínia.
My friends already knew Unicamp. Lucas attended a lecture, Karla went to the Hospital de Clínicas. But nothing that compares to the experience they go through between this Wednesday (4) and February 3rd. With the program, students stay all week carrying out research or even recreational activities, getting to know what the University is and how academic research work is carried out.
“You will have the opportunity to see how the University works, how knowledge is generated, how people work with scientific methods. The program will show you a completely different world from what people believe the University is. The generation of knowledge is serious, but there is also a lot of fun”, said one of the CAF coordinators, Professor Fernando Coelho, present at the board of directors at the opening ceremony.


In addition to him, the vice-mayor of Campinas, Henrique Magalhães Teixeira, participated in the ceremony, held in the morning in the FCM auditorium; the municipal secretary of Education, Solange Pelicer; the regional education director, Antônio Schiavo; the teaching supervisor, Sergio Bertoli; and the host of the ceremony and Pro-Rector of Research at Unicamp, Gláucia Pastore.
In her welcome speech, the dean took on the challenge of bringing a message of optimism to students, in such difficult times, with so much bad news, as she commented. “You are, indeed, our hope. We often think that everything is bad and that there is no way out, but we are growing and, in this process, truth, research and discovery are fundamental attitudes to building a nation”.
Gláucia Pastore also highlighted the importance of study and analysis for the development of a critical sense capable of interpreting realities. “If there is one thing that research forces us to do, it is to be truthful.”

According to the hostess, the Science and Art on Vacation program is designed with great care by the University because it represents a vehicle of communication with society and schools. In this edition, 220 high school students from 73 public schools in Campinas and the region participate. For students, everything is a dream. Take the entrance exam, enter Unicamp as a student. Karla, Lucas's friend, wants to be a hematologist. Another student, Karolina Silva, from the Joaquim Ferreira Lima school, Vila 31 de Março, also in Campinas, thinks about architecture and urbanism. “I hope I can learn and have a foundation for college. I’m likely to do well,” she celebrates.
After the formal opening, the students began to get a taste of what was to come with a lecture that showed how science simulates things that happen in nature and how this can be used for development. The lecture was given by professor and also CAF coordinator, Douglas Soares Galvão.
To finish, everyone watched the presentation by students from Cosmópolis of the “All Ways of Learning” project, from Colégio Olímpico. Students of various ages, including a child in a wheelchair, performed acrobatics, danced and acted.






