Three high school students will spend a year learning firsthand how science is conducted within a university. Starting in September 2026, they will visit laboratories of the Graduate Program in Pharmacology at the School of Medical Sciences of Unicamp. The students will take part in supervised experimental activities, learn to interpret scientific data, and produce science communication content.
The initiative is part of the Institutional Program for Scientific Initiation Scholarships for High School Students (PIBIC-EM) and aims to bring young people closer to the field of Pharmacology and to the different stages involved in the production, evaluation, and communication of scientific knowledge.
Learning Science by Doing Science
What happens when high school students move beyond learning science in classrooms and textbooks and begin experiencing, firsthand, how scientific knowledge is produced and communicated?
This is the question at the heart of a scientific initiation project developed by the Graduate Program in Pharmacology at Unicamp, which will welcome three public high school students for 12 months, from September 2026 to August 2027.
The project is titled (loosely translated) “Scientific Literacy in Pharmacology: From Experimental Research to Science Communication.” It is part of the Institutional Program for Scientific Initiation Scholarships for High School Students (PIBIC-EM), funded by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) and coordinated by Unicamp’s Office of Research (PRP).
The students will be selected by Unicamp’s Office of Research (the application period has already closed).
The initiative is coordinated by Prof. Dr. Fabíola Zakia Mónica, with the collaboration of ten other faculty members: Dr. André Almeida Schenka, Dr. Cháriston André Dal Belo, Dr. Gabriel Forato Anhê, Dr. José Luiz da Costa, Dr. Luís Gustavo Romani Fernandes, Dr. Mariana Gonçalves de Oliveira, Dr. Natália Ferreira Mendes, Dr. Natalícia De Jesus Antunes, Dr. Renato Simões Gaspar, and Dr. Stephen Hyslop.
The initiative also involves me, Dr. Mia Schezaro Ramos, the science journalist and postdoctoral researcher leading this blog. I am responsible for developing the initial proposal, writing the project, and coordinating it alongside Prof. Fabiola.
As the project title suggests, its main goal is to promote scientific literacy in Pharmacology. To achieve this, students will be introduced to different stages of scientific knowledge production, from understanding basic concepts to participating in supervised experimental activities, interpreting scientific data and content, and communicating science to the public.
To make this experience possible, students will also receive a support structure throughout their 12 months in the program. This includes a R$300 monthly scholarship, access to the University Restaurant for one meal per day, and Unicamp’s shuttle transportation service, when a suitable route is available.
Scholarship recipients will also be able to use the University’s libraries and, in emergencies, access medical and dental services at the Community Health Center (CECOM). The program also provides personal accident insurance throughout their participation in the project.
Promoting Scientific Literacy
At a time when information about health, medications, and nutrition circulates rapidly on social media, understanding science has become an increasingly important skill.
But understanding science goes far beyond knowing scientific concepts. To appropriate scientific knowledge and apply it to everyday life, people need scientific literacy.
Scientific literacy enables individuals to understand, interpret, and use science in different contexts. It involves understanding how knowledge is produced, validated, and communicated by the scientific community.
In other words, scientific literacy is not simply about “knowing science.” Memorizing concepts or formulas is important, but it is only one part of the process.
Scientific literacy involves a broader understanding of scientific activity, allowing people to interpret information, evaluate evidence, and think critically about issues related to science and technology. It means appropriating scientific knowledge and using it in everyday life and when forming opinions.
To promote scientific literacy, students will be encouraged throughout the project to develop several competencies: understanding scientific concepts, learning how a research is conducted, critically interpreting scientific information, and communicating knowledge to different audiences.
The project aims to show that science is not a collection of ready-made, unchanging truths. Instead, science is an ongoing process of investigation, analysis, and evaluation of evidence.
Understanding how hypotheses are formulated, experiments are conducted, and results are evaluated will help students move beyond being passive recipients who simply receive information and accept it without question.
These skills enable people to think critically about the information they encounter. This can help them identify misinformation (fake news) that lacks scientific basis. It can also help them recognize the social, technological, and environmental impacts of scientific issues.
By understanding how science works and how scientific knowledge is constructed, people become better prepared to evaluate information, take positions on complex issues, and participate in discussions that are relevant to society.
Thus, promoting scientific literacy means creating opportunities for students to learn how to question, investigate, interpret evidence, and communicate knowledge, developing skills that can be applied to different aspects of their lives, both inside and outside school.
More Information Does Not Mean More Knowledge
Science may begin in a laboratory, but its effects extend far beyond university walls. It is present in seemingly simple everyday decisions: choosing a medication, understanding information about nutrition, taking part in discussions about the environment, and so on.
Especially today, it has never been easier to find information. An internet search can provide research findings, news articles, videos, and publications on virtually any subject within seconds.
Access to information has increased significantly, but that does not necessarily mean that our ability to critically evaluate what we find has increased as well. When it comes to topics related to Pharmacology, this skill is particularly important, since incorrect information can influence choices and behaviors that directly affect an individual’s health.
With adequate scientific literacy, we begin to ask ourselves: “Who produced this information?”, “What evidence supports it?”, “How was that result obtained?”, and “What do the data actually allow us to conclude?”
By asking these questions, we can distinguish genuine scientific information from false information that is presented as scientific. After all, understanding science also means knowing how to ask questions, be skeptical, verify information, and interpret evidence.
This is why the scientific initiation project being developed is so relevant. Providing students with scientific literacy on health-related topics may positively influence the everyday decisions they make throughout their lives.
How Does the Project Work?
To turn contact with science into a learning experience, the project has been organized around three complementary areas: laboratory experience; scientific training; and scientific literacy and communication.
The goal is for these three areas to be connected throughout the 12-month project. In this way, students will be exposed to the different stages involved in producing and communicating scientific knowledge, from conducting research to communicating science to different audiences.
Below, we will explore each of these areas in more detail.
Area 1: Laboratory Experience
In the first area, students will have the opportunity to visit and experience different research environments. To achieve this, they will rotate monthly among nine laboratories within the Graduate Program in Pharmacology.
All faculty members collaborating on the project will welcome the students into their laboratories. The faculty members have also selected mentors to accompany and supervise the students throughout the project. These mentors are master’s or doctoral students from the respective laboratories and will receive compensation for their work.
The experience may also contribute to the training of the mentors themselves. They will have the opportunity to practice communicating science to an audience without specialized training, learning how to explain concepts, procedures, and results in a clear and accessible way. In addition, the experience will bring the mentors closer to teaching and mentoring activities.
During their supervised time in each laboratory, students will follow the routine of different research groups, learn about different research areas, and interact with researchers and graduate students.
It is important to note that, during the first month of the project, before beginning their laboratory activities, the students will undergo training with me, Dr. Mia. The training will cover aspects of laboratory safety. Throughout the project, students will not perform invasive procedures or participate in experiments involving vertebrate animals or human subjects.
The variety of laboratories will allow students to learn about different approaches to conducting research in Pharmacology, exposing them to different topics, techniques, and scientific questions.
Area 2: Scientific Training
In addition to their practical experience, students will receive scientific training in general Pharmacology topics, as well as in specific topics related to the research areas of each laboratory.
The training will help students understand key aspects of scientific research, such as: “Why and how are experiments conducted?”, “How should results be interpreted?”, and “What can we conclude from these data?”
For this reason, the second area includes theoretical and practical activities covering the scientific method, basic concepts in Pharmacology and Physiology, principles underlying experimental procedures, data organization and analysis, bibliographic search, and research ethics.
The goal is not simply to introduce students to laboratory techniques. When observing an experiment, analyzing its results, or discussing a research project, they will also be encouraged to understand the questions that guide the investigation, the steps used to seek answers, and how the resulting data can be interpreted.
Area 3: Scientific Literacy and Communication
The third area seeks to connect everything learned in Areas 1 and 2 with the students’ own lives, both through the application of knowledge to everyday situations and through their role as science communicators.
Students will be trained to interpret scientific content, identify misinformation, recognize the relevance of scientific discoveries, and understand how scientific findings can inform everyday health-related decisions.
This area also expands the experience beyond the production of knowledge and addresses another fundamental question: “How do we communicate science?” In this context, students will receive science communication training from me, Dr. Mia. I will also serve as their mentor and editor for all the content they produce.
By learning how to communicate science, students will also deepen their own understanding of what they have studied. After all, turning a scientific concept, experiment, or result into an accessible explanation requires knowing how to select the most important information, organize ideas clearly, and think about how best to present a particular topic.
Through this process, students move from being merely recipients of knowledge to becoming its interpreters and communicators. In this way, teaching also becomes a form of learning.
Science in Circulation
Training students to communicate science has another important advantage: the project will no longer be limited to the three students selected to participate in the initiative and can reach a much broader audience.
Students will produce science communication content for the social media channels of the Graduate Program in Pharmacology and for the Farmaco em Foco blog. This will allow them to share the knowledge they acquire throughout the project with other people.
Science learned in the laboratory needs to make its way back to society. It needs to be transformed into understandable, critically interpreted, and socially shared knowledge.
Thus, the project will not be limited to promoting scientific literacy among the three high school students. It will also seek to strengthen scientific culture, reaching more people through science communication.
Another advantage of having students work as science communicators is that they will bring their own perspectives to this work. Because they are similar in age and educational background to many potential readers, they may more easily recognize which questions, topics, and approaches are most relevant to people with profiles similar to theirs.
This proximity can help create content that is better suited to younger audiences, both in the choice of topics and in the language used to present them.
Rather than thinking only about what is important from the perspective of those conducting the research, students will also be able to ask themselves: “What would someone my age like to know about this?”, “What might be difficult to understand?”, and “How would I explain this topic to a classmate?”
What Will Students Find in the Laboratories?
As mentioned above, throughout the project, students will have the opportunity to visit different laboratories and learn about research areas within the Graduate Program in Pharmacology.
The experience will allow them to see that Pharmacology is a broad field that encompasses different topics, methods, and approaches to investigating how the body works and how substances can produce effects on it.
In one of the laboratories, for example, students will learn to observe tissues and organs under a microscope. They will be introduced to techniques that make it possible to visualize details that cannot be seen with the naked eye.
In another, they may explore Neuropharmacology, the field that studies how drugs and chemical substances affect the functioning of the nervous system and influence behavior. To do so, they will participate in activities involving cockroaches, observing, for example, how these animals explore their environment and learn to recognize smells.
There will also be experiences related to topics closer to everyday life. Students may learn about medications and how they work, including the importance of properly disposing of pharmaceutical products. They will also explore topics related to metabolism, obesity, and the use of medications for weight management. In addition, they may learn about allergies to insect venom and immunotherapy.
By moving among different research groups, students will be able to see that there is no single way to do science. A scientific question may require microscopes, biochemical analyses, physiological recordings, interpretation of graphs, or behavioral observations. In all these cases, researchers need to formulate questions, gather evidence, analyze results, and develop interpretations.
The project aims to provide the three students with tools to approach science in a more critical and participatory way. Through scientific literacy, they will be able to take this experience far beyond the laboratories. More than an introduction to scientific research, the project aims to show young people that understanding and communicating science are also ways of actively participating in society.
The project featured in this article is funded by FAPESP (grant no. 25/17158-3), CAPES, and CNPq.
This article was produced with the support of the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), Brazil. Grant no. 25/17158-3. The opinions, hypotheses, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of FAPESP.
For Further Reading:
Promoting Scientific Literacy in High School: Educational Challenges and Perspectives (DOI: 10.52641/cadcajv10i1.856)
Scientific Literacy and Science Literacy: Possible Pathways for Science Education
Scientific Literacy at School: The Educational Potential of Science Fairs (DOI: 10.36732/riep.v6i1.337)
Scientific Literacy in the School Context: A Bottom-Up Perspective on the Production of Science Communication Articles in High School (a Master’s dissertation)
Scientific Literacy in Integrated High School Education: Student Perspectives from the Technical Administration Program at a State School in Paraíba (a Master’s dissertation)
Scientific Literacy and the Practices of High School Biology Teachers
Written by:
Mia Schezaro Ramos
Pharmacist. Ph.D. in Pharmacology. Science journalist, illustrator, trans, Nintendo enthusiast, K-pop fan, and dependent on