Scholarship recipients create a system to support scientific activities in public schools.

Ceara 247 - A group of doctoral scholarship recipients from the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) decided to create an online platform to support scientific development activities in Brazilian public schools. This is the... ScienceIn this project, public school teachers submit proposals for project development, and the group selects a doctoral student to collaborate on the research activities. "It's a way of inserting and integrating science into the daily lives of young students," explains Esequiel Mesquita, one of the platform's creators and a CAPES scholarship recipient for his doctorate in Civil Engineering at the University of Porto, Portugal.

One of +Science's objectives is to bridge the gap between public and free higher and secondary education. According to Esequiel, the platform is not directly related to his doctoral studies, but rather to his status as a CAPES scholarship recipient. "The idea for creating +Science arose from the popular demonstrations that have taken place in Brazil in recent months, where the Brazilian population showed that they want effective change in how some things happen in our country. A group of friends and I, whom I met during my doctoral studies abroad, all CAPES scholarship recipients, discussed extensively what our role should be and what kinds of responses we could offer to society, given that our scholarships are funded by taxes collected in our country," he explains.

In addition to Esequiel, Carolina Caretti, a doctoral candidate in Literature at the State University of São Paulo, Eimard Nascimento, a doctoral candidate in Mathematics at the University of Aveiro, in Portugal, and Cristiano Reis, a doctoral candidate in Biosystems Engineering at the University of Minnesota, in the United States, make up the platform's management team.

There are already 44 registered volunteer researchers and two schools from Ceará participating: the Irauçuba High School, in Irauçuba, and the José Ribeiro Damasceno State Professional Education School, in Trairi. In addition, three schools from Rio Grande do Sul have contacted us for more information about the project.

The volunteer researchers are Brazilian doctoral students distributed across various institutions, such as the University of Lisbon, the Federal University of Paraná, the Dublin Institute of Technology, the University of São Paulo, the São Paulo State University "Júlio de Mesquita Filho", the Florida Institute of Technology, Aix-Marseille University, Cornell University, University College Dublin, among others.

Social Responsibility

The scholarship recipient highlights the social responsibility aspect of the tool. "We absolutely do not agree with being invested in by the Brazilian people without there being a way to effectively contribute to the development of science in our country during this period. For us, this is an issue that goes far beyond our responsibilities as professionals in training; it is truly a civic matter. We believe that education is the strongest foundation on which a country can build to grow, and we share the idea that, for education to improve, each of us must assume our responsibility within the social context and do our part," explains Esequiel, a native of the city of Irauçuba, in Ceará.

According to the platform's management team, one of +Science's objectives is to bridge the gap between public and free higher education. "Since, in many cases, postgraduate researchers pursue their professional paths in academic research or private companies, this directly impacts public education," they explain in a statement. The students intend to integrate researchers funded by government agencies into initiatives arising in public schools, "so as not to lose sight of the fact that one of the pillars upon which the Brazilian public university rests is outreach, an inseparable element of academic research and teaching."

Return to society

All the work is voluntary and, initially, the participants gain experience in guiding projects, as many of them do not yet have effective teaching experience. "School is the praxis, it's where the motto 'Educating Nation' takes shape, where the social and professional destiny of young people is often defined. Furthermore, this type of experience also brings us closer to the public education system and, fundamentally, I think it helps us fulfill an essential role in Brazil's development: the integration of young people with science," they emphasize.

The managers of +Science state that they are aware of their privilege in being able to count on government support for their research and, therefore, want to give back to society. The platform was the way they found to reciprocate the trust invested in the population through the scholarships granted by funding agencies. Esequiel was also a scholarship recipient from the Ceará Foundation for Support of Scientific and Technological Development (Funcap) during his undergraduate studies in Civil Engineering at the Vale do Acaraú State University (UVA).

"Brazil has an increasing number of masters and doctoral degree holders, with research and scientific production generating an impact on industry and medicine, for example, but this does not necessarily have repercussions in public education, as the number of professionals who turn to teaching in classrooms is small. Producing science and culture with public resources makes us think that, in some way, there must be a return to society and that, if such a return is made directly, our entire trajectory will have been much more worthwhile," they explain.

According to Esequiel, the opportunity to pursue a doctorate abroad is a winning initiative. "We are already beginning to reap the rewards of this investment, promoting the internationalization of Brazilian research and training high-level young researchers. For us scholarship recipients, this CAPES initiative is extremely important because, in addition to receiving excellent training as researchers and being included in centers of excellence in areas that are not yet consolidated in Brazil, we experience daily the best practices of scientific research, which will undoubtedly be very useful for our future role as agents of development in Brazil when we return from our doctorates," he concludes.

How to participate

Interested teachers should fill out the online form with school information, the group of students involved, and their main scientific interests, along with a brief research project proposal of no more than three pages, containing the title, working group (students and other teachers), area of ​​concentration, introduction, objectives, methodology, expected results, and bibliography.

Master's and doctoral students interested in participating should complete the PhD Action form with their academic information and main areas of expertise. To register, they must confirm their availability of 1 hour per week to support research groups in Brazilian public schools.

Access Science.