Next Tuesday, February 11, the International Day of Women and Girls in Science will be celebrated and the celebration will be lived in a very special way in the laboratories of the three engineering schools on campus, Cinbio and Ecimat, since the researchers who work in these facilities every day will share their passion for science and technology with more than 250 secondary school students from different municipalities in the province of Pontevedra. They have been organizing the activities for weeks and everything is ready to welcome them and convince them that they are facing a world “very interesting and attractive, which can be very fun and, above all, absolutely essential for society to advance”, as emphasized by researchers Belén Vaz and Verónica Salgueiriños, coordinators of the scientific workshops.
All the activities (workshops, conferences, talks…) are grouped in a series of days called Elas fan CienTec 2020 and all have as their fundamental objective to give visibility to the work of women in these fields, create female roles in the field of science and engineering and promote practices that favor gender equality. In addition, the celebrations will continue on Wednesday 12th on the Ourense campus with the III Day of dissemination in science, technology, engineering and mathematics Exxperimenta en feminino, 14 practical workshops in which around 300 schoolchildren will participate. And, in addition to all these activities on the Vigo and Ourense campuses, throughout the month, 26 researchers and one researcher from UVigo will go to 29 educational centers throughout Galicia to offer 41 talks and activities about their work and the role of women in science and technology.
Scientific field: six workshops at Cinbio and activities at Ecimat
The scientific activities will be concentrated at the Biomedical Research Center, Cinbio, and at the Toralla Marine Science Station, belonging to the Marine Research Center (CIM). Six workshops will be held at Cinbio, which will address issues such as the preparation of gold nanoparticles, testing of optical properties, sex chromosomes and sex-linked inheritance… “We have to try to convey to these girls that women can and should be part of this whole process, because they have a lot to contribute and a lot to say”, emphasize the coordinators, Vaz and Salgueiriño, who also announce that, as the main novelty, this year the program of activities includes a short inaugural talk that will be given by Amelia Verdejo, a professor of Mathematics at the University of Vigo, now retired, and who has a very demanding profile with respect to raising awareness on issues of equality.” In previous editions, some of the participating girls complained about the fact that we had left their classmates out and others made it clear that they did not believe this type of activity was necessary, which is why we decided to also include this talk,” explain the organizers.
In the case of the CIM, this date will be celebrated with a conference by Alba Sousa, a psychologist specialized in awareness and training in equality and gender violence, and with a visit to the Ecimat facilities guided by the technicians who work there, so that they have the opportunity to learn about the research projects that are being carried out and learn first-hand the stories and experiences of the women who carry them out. The activity is co-financed by the Xunta de Galicia and the European Union, through its co-financing under the FEDER/FSE Galicia 2014-2020 Operational Program.
Technological area: nine workshops in the three engineering schools
In the technological field, each of the engineering schools on campus has organized its own workshops. In the School of Telecommunications Engineering, the activities will revolve around video games, the functioning of the internet and Lego Mindstorm robots. “We are going to repeat the same workshops as in past editions because the evaluation we received from the high schools after the day is very positive,” explains Professor Soledad Torres, coordinator of the activities at this center, who emphasizes that the main thing is that the girls return home seeing technology “as something useful for society, fun and within their reach.”
In the School of Mining and Energy Engineering, the workshops will focus on identifying the most common minerals; on presenting the different materials (ceramics, metals, polymers, etc.), including multiple curiosities regarding their use, and on a series of very visual practical experiences aimed at learning the basic notions of combustion. In Industrial Engineering, three other workshops will be held: one on infrared thermography; another on design and prototyping and, a third, on Open Lab, in which they will be able to visualize different projects applying this technology, including the single-seater designed by UVigoMotorsport.
Women and girls in science poster (PDF)
Source: DUVI
