The professional Patricia Aguilera (UNAM Mexico) was in charge of presenting in the fifth session of the Talks + Science Cycle, an event organized by the Scientific Inquiry Program for Science Education (ICEC) executed by the study house in the Region from Coquimbo.

Public communication of science is a relatively emerging field, which in recent years has been booming, given the concern to contribute to a scientific culture and promote critical thinking in society. In this context, Mexico is one of the countries that has a 45-year tradition in this area, which has allowed it to implement strategies in conjunction with formal education, considering teachers as relevant allies in scientific dissemination.

“Since 2000 there has been an institutional concern to contribute to scientific literacy and scientific-technological training of citizens. Ana María Sánchez, one of the best-known communicators in Mexico, refers to the fact that public communication of science is nothing more than a multidisciplinary task, which aims to communicate scientific knowledge, using various media, to various voluntary audiences, with the purpose of recreating said knowledge, which is being developed from science, with fidelity and contextualizing it with the population we are interested in reaching, to make it accessible,” explained academic Patricia Aguilera.

The professional also alluded to the fact that in this disciplinary field dialogue with the community plays a fundamental role, since it is in this way that it takes on the character of public. “Approaching the public has a very important intention, which is not only to learn knowledge or understand science, but also to achieve scientific literacy and especially the construction of scientific culture. Something that has failed a lot now to contain the pandemic is that society precisely lacks a scientific culture and much less has critical thinking,” the speaker clarified.

For this reason, one of the fundamental aspects that have been carried out in Mexico is to consider teachers as strategic partners when disseminating scientific content, since it is through formal education and science teaching is promoted early. the development of critical thinking.

“We discovered that the knowledge given to the students was often not significant or functional, therefore, we realized that it had to be arranged so that it was of interest, gave it meaning, and was useful for interpreting and acting in a certain way.” more direct way. As disseminators we can share more playful strategies for their teaching practices, which can awaken interest in science in their students. In conclusion, the strategies we use in scientific dissemination, due to their non-formal, active, participatory and playful characteristics, can become tools that contribute to teaching practice,” he says.

Although science teaching and public science communication belong to different educational fields, with different objectives, methodologies and audiences, both use scientific knowledge as a source, their purpose is to bring/teach scientific concepts to a particular audience, they share some problems that arise from the communication of the scientific message to the public and require investigation.

“We must be clear that the dissemination of science is not science teaching, it is not science didactics, it is not a literal translation of scientific knowledge, and it is not solely for fun, utility and apostolate. Therefore, synergy must be done with formal education to achieve what matters to us, which is to promulgate a scientific culture, and for people to understand what it is for, so that they can question the information and points of view that are presented to us, and have their own conclusions to be able to clarify and define the problems they present to us, so that they can judge the information and solve the problems,” concluded the specialist.

The sixth session of the Talks + Science Cycle will take place next Friday, August 28, at 16:30 p.m., and will have as a guest physics professor Martín Monteiro (ORT University, Uruguay) who will present "Smartphones as portable laboratories to do physics everywhere and in times of pandemic." Those interested can register at the following link https://bit.ly/32iTJpu

Written by Daniela Ledezma, ICEC Program