The activity inserted in Science Week seeks to allow students to get to know the Department's work rooms and rooms, such as the Microscopy, Zoology and Botany laboratories, as an experience full of surprises and knowledge. 

Through the program “Scientists for a day, science for all”, a group made up of fifty 5th and 7th grade students, belonging to the Río Grande de Carén school, commune of Monte Patria, visited the Pedagogy career facilities in Biology and Cs. Naturals of the University of La Serena. 

“It is a delegation that comes in the context of a technical assistance agreement that the ULS has with the commune of Monte Patria. They make a visit with the aim of having a space for experimentation that they have not had in their schools,” indicated the director of the Department of Biology of the Faculty of Sciences, Dr. Geraldo Brown.

The academic added that “the students of the biology teaching didactics course prepared the program and content and are guiding them on this visit. This experience is also significant for them as future professionals.”  

Williams Echeverría, Monte Patria teacher in charge of the delegation, pointed out that “thanks to this visit, we have the possibility for the students to contextualize the knowledge they are receiving in the classroom, experience it and generate a higher quality of their learning.” . 

The schoolchildren took advantage of every moment of the scheduled activities. “I think this visit is very good because we learn more than we know. Then they give us a test on what we saw and heard from the researchers,” explained student Cristian Campusano.

For her part, Ignacia Cantuarias, expressed that “I find it interesting to come to the University, the animals and the samples that we saw in the Zoology laboratory caught my attention.”

“What we do here is try to explain the task we do at the University of La Serena and in this specific laboratory. We believe that it is necessary to leave a message further and include content that may be a bit dry for students, but that we bring to a context that children can understand and assimilate. This way it is possible to plant a seed so that they can observe, question their environment, understanding that organisms are connected and that involves us all,” said Cristian Salgado, part of the group of guides present at the Functional Ecology Laboratory.

The framework collaboration agreement for the improvement in equity and quality of communal education in force between the Municipality of Monte Patria and the University of La Serena, has the purpose of enhancing the work of both entities in the field of Education and in the processes related to professional development, curricular management and educational action research in the community's educational system.