At school, Paola says that the teacher dedicated an exclusive class to entomology, which was not on the program. At the science fair, she and Leonardo, who is participating in CAF this year, presented a lecture on Forensic Entonology. “I think this is a really cool thing that Ciência e Arte nas Férias provides for people. In a way, it opens our eyes so that we can see things that, at school, we cannot see.”
“There are a lot of beetles. I didn't imagine there were so many beetles. I didn't even know that a woodworm was a beetle. And, to imagine that with a beetle you could solve forensic cases, it got worse!”, says Wanderli D. Dias, a student at Etecap (Conselheiro Antonio Prado State Technical School), who is participating until Friday (3) in the 15th edition of the Science program & Art on Holidays (CAF). She is part of a group of 225 students from 73 public high schools in Campinas and the region who chose to spend their vacation discovering how science is produced in Brazil, within one of Unicamp's different colleges and institutes.
Wanderli, who chose Biology (IB) for his season, says he never imagined there was such a thing as Forensic Entomology, “when I found out about this area, I thought it was incredible! Use flies and beetles to date the time of death! Guys, how do they do this!?” She and Pamela Silva, a student at Colégio Técnico de Campinas (Cotuca), participate in the project Diary of a beetle, guided by professor Patricia Jacqueline Thyssen and carried out by her team at the IB's Integrative Entomology Laboratory, which carries out research in the areas of Medical Entomology and Forensic Entomology.
“When I saw the name, Diary of a beetle, I thought it was a more square, simpler business. I didn’t imagine they would go so deep and give us so much attention”, highlights Pamela. Pamela's perception is not mistaken. Professor Thyssen's group is really dedicated to CAF. Since planning the season, the teacher calls on monitors and students to collectively structure the program that will be developed. All students get involved, from undergraduate to doctorate. “The entire Laboratory stops for a month to teach Science and Art during the Holidays”, says the proud teacher. She explains that CAF is not just an opportunity for teenagers to have contact with the University. It is also a professional opportunity for its students, who have to teach and face the challenge of adapting the content of their research to the high school audience.
Natane Sibon Purgato, monitor of this edition of CAF and professor Thyssen's doctoral student, corroborates her advisor's opinion: “it's not just the content that we teach; These are people we are taking care of. This is something that we don't realize when we are in a classroom with 40 students, when we do an internship. Here we are having an experience that we like and seeing them enjoy it. Makes you proud! We see the desire to teach growing within us.”
The two programs offered by the Laboratory this year, Diary of a beetle e Entomolypic Games, sought, through the creation of comic books, to show the life cycle of insects and their importance for certain areas of laboratory research. According to the teacher, the objective was to present students with a new perspective on insects. “Culturally, people think that insects are just bad for your health. So, we wanted to show that they have extremely important functions in nature, such as recycling nutrients”, explains Thyssen.
Vitória Compagnone, also a Cotuca student, who participated in the project Entomolypic Games, explains that, even though cockroaches are pathogen vectors (disease transmitters), they have a lot to teach us. “They have interesting biological properties. For example, the way they survive extreme situations. They’re cool!” he argues.
The inspiration for this project came from the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games. Professor Patricia Thyssen explains that the idea was to show students the particularities of each insect. “An insect can jump, proportionally, much further than a man, like a flea”, she explains.
The teacher, who participates in CAF for the tenth consecutive year, collects positive stories about the program. “I have a student who learned about the University and decided on her area of activity based on it, for example,” she says. She refers to Aline Marrara, who participated in CAF in 2010, when she was a student at Escola Estadual Felipe Cantusio. Today, she is studying biology at Unicamp and is undertaking scientific initiation with a Fapesp scholarship. “She has her own line of research”, says the professor proudly. Aline works with the description of immatures (larvae) of flies from the Fanniidae family, a family of great forensic importance. Last year, she won an honorable mention during the São Paulo Parasitology Congress.
Meanwhile at the Central Library...
At the Cesar Lattes Central Library (BCCL), reading technologies were the subject of two projects: 3D: Reading on the move e Free software and hardware tools for musical accessibility for the visually impaired. In the first, the students learned a little about virtual reality and, in the end, built cardboard glasses. The project was designed by Valéria dos Santos Gouveia Martins, associate coordinator of the Unicamp Library System (SBU), and by professor Vera Regina Toledo Camargo, researcher at the Laboratory for Advanced Studies in Journalism (Labjor).
The second group was coordinated by professors José Eduardo Fornari Novo Júnior, researcher at the Interdisciplinary Center for Sound Communication (NICS), and Vilson Zattera, from the Institute of Arts (IA). The students participated in the development of computational models for visually impaired musicians.
