Every year, research institutes, universities, museums, schools of Portugal open their doors to students during  “The Science and Technology Week” organized by CIENCIA VIVA. Last year, this event was held from November 19-24.

 

We were happy to show our laboratories in Biocant Park and therefore explained a little about our work and projects to students.

 

We received a class of 28 students of the 9th grade (15 years old) from the private school Escola Pedro Teixeira placed in Cantanhede.

 

 

Before going for a tour in the Tissue Engineering and Matera Labs, we received the students and the teachers in the Centro de Ciencia Junior (Many Thanks to Margarida Vieira who allowed us to use her Lab and she always invites us for teaching activities!!!) where Michela, Josephine and Catarina gave a talk about the ongoing projects and research interests of the group.

 

After the talk we went with students in our laboratories and students could put hands on nanofilms (Thanks to Pedro), see beating cardiac myocytes under a microscope (Thanks to Susana) and have a look to all the equipment needed to make and characterize nanoparticles (Thanks to Miguel and Carlos). The pupils were impressed, they asked a lot of questions and the teachers were really satisfied. For us it was nice to see a strong and true interest in student’s eyes…

 

Beyond the overview of our work, the students also learnt that it is very important to speak and understand English in a proper way to communicate with people from all over the world.

 

And we did a great job altogether communicating and teaching science that is of the utmost importance!!!

 

We are looking forward for the next edition.