Fundación opened its doors to over 100 school students during Science Week

October 19, 2009

As part of Science Week, organized by the Explora program of the National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research, CONICYT, Fundación Ciencia para la Vida was visited by two local schools: The Merryland School from Puente Alto and the Andrée English School from la Reina council.

Nicolás Torres, a school student from the Merryland School in Puente Alto, knew little about science but was thrilled to visit the laboratories, “in addition to our regular science classes at school, all I know about science is what we can see through the cable TV channels, it is amazing what is done in Chile,” he said.

Like Nicolás, much of the 100 students who visited Fundación on Wednesday 7th have a rather distant relationship with the national scientific events, and are unaware of the Chilean research institutions that develop high impact investigations aimed at improving the quality of life of the Chilean society. It was common to hear among the adolescents phrases like “I never knew this existed in Chile”, “The world of science is really fun and exciting”, “I never thought of becoming a scientist, now that might be an interesting career alternative.”

During their visit, Dr. Vivian Wilhelm explained the research programs that are being carried out at the Fundación and later gave way to a guided visit of the laboratories where the students were divided into groups led by the following researchers of Fundación: Consuelo Bruno, Esteban Engel, Nicole Tischler, Erwin Krauspkof and Alejandra Loyola.

In this occasion the students interacted with a number of investigators and performed some basic laboratory experiments. “Pipetting was by far the most entertaining part of the visit, I felt like a real scientist for a few minutes,” said Nicolás.

Dr. Viviam Wilhelm giving a talk to school students at the Fundación’s Auditorum.