Translator: David DeRuwe Reviewer: Claudia Sander What we know and what we have experienced make us who we are today. Our questions, those that we we are seeking an answer to, make us who we will be tomorrow. Curiosity is what is behind these questions.
Curiosity is something that I discovered when I started to do research when I was in high school. Only it took a long time, and I literally needed to cross an ocean to understand the power of it. During high school, I did research.
I studied at a school called Fundação Liberato, which is pretty close to here. There, to do scientific research is a veritable tradition, so all the students do research. From my first year at that school, I started to do scientific projects.
My first project was with Viviane and Gabriela, two fellow students in a technical course. It was 2007, and we were hearing a lot about global warming and about greenhouse gases. We were very worried about this.
Could it be that our school and our scholastic activities were contributing to global warming? And then, we did our first project, which was to collect a lot of data, and calculate mathematically how much carbon dioxide our school was emitting during our school activities; and how much it absorbed, because, inside, the school had a eucalyptus plantation. It was a mathematical accounting - add here, subtract there - and we discovered that the balance was positive.
The school absorbed more than it emitted; this was great for the environment! We did this project, presented it at science fairs . .
. and didn't win anything! But it was OK.
We went on to the next step, which was to do a new project. Observing the eucalyptus plantations, we realized that nothing grew around the eucalyptus trees. And so our second project was to create a natural herbicide with eucalyptus leaves.
What we did, basically, was mix the eucalyptus leaves with water to make an extract that could inhibit the growth of weeds. We went again to the science fair, showed our project . .
. and didn't win anything! It was OK, we were learning more with each step.
Then, in the third year, we were no longer required to do a project, but by then, we liked it so much, going to fairs and not winning, that it made great sense to continue. We wanted to do something more challenging since it was our third project. We decided to completely change our topic, maybe the problem was we were working with the environment.
We went for the area of health. Then we decided to create a bandage with nanoparticles. From a family story, I already knew a little about the process of amputation.
The idea was to create a bandage that could be used postoperatively for amputation and reimplantation of limbs. Basically, what we did was put some nanoparticles on fabric that had an antimicrobial effect to keep bacteria and fungi from proliferating, and with a thermal insulating effect that would warm the skin and increase blood flow. Again we took this project to the fair .
. . and we didn't win anything, but then we went to another, and we started to win prizes.
Taking a little from this experience, I went on to a fourth project that was, basically, a continuation of the third. After studying so much about the process of amputation and reimplantation of limbs, I realized that most amputations occurred in people with diabetes, generally of the lower limbs, because these people, typically, develop a particular problem that we call diabetic foot. The idea was to use that same fabric to create a sock that could treat diabetic foot.
On account of these projects, I had incredible experiences. I started to win some prizes, and this taught me a lot. Let's think about how these projects occur, how they come about, how scientists work.
I would like for you to close your eyes and think of a wonderful phase of your lives. How about puberty? You can open your eyes.
Puberty is a wonderful phase, a physiological chaos. In puberty, people often use the scientific method. Imagine yourselves at age 13 looking into a mirror and, suddenly, you noticed a red dot in the middle of your forehead.
It was a pimple. Scientists start right there by observing, then they identify the problem. This definitely is a problem.
At the week's end, you have a party, and hey, nobody wants to take a pimple to a party. And then you make a hypothesis, and your hypothesis might be that you can remove the pimple with your hands. Then, the scientist goes to the next step which is the planning and execution of the experiment.
You go in front of the mirror and squeeze the pimple. And then we get the result. The result was negative: your pimple is now visible from 10 meters away.
Before you get to the party, it will be there saying hello to the crowd. And then, we make a conclusion, which is the final step. But, in fact, it never ends because always, in science, when you reach a conclusion, it leads you to many other questions.
Basically, we start with an observation, find a problem, create a hypothesis, plan and execute an experiment that brings results, and reach a conclusion that leads us to new questions. I learned much from doing research, but I still hadn't learned what was most special and essential about being a scientist. I needed to go to Israel to be able to see this.
In 2013, I was selected to go to Israel for a five-week research exchange at the Weizman Institute, one of the world's biggest research institutes. I was there with more than 80 young people from around the world, all preparing to enter university. I was put to work with my mentor, Hila Harris, a neuroscientist.
With her, what I was basically doing was trying to understand some functionalities of the brain. I would come to her and ask, "Hila, what will we be able to resolve when we understand what we discover with the project? What problem will we resolve?
" She said, "Kawoana, I don't know how we will use it. " I was so frustrated with that because in all my vast experience as a scientist throughout my high school years, I thought that scientists were people who used the scientific method to resolve problems. This was not true.
At dinner with the institute's president, he told us that there in that institute, the scientists were selected by their degree of curiosity. "Curiosity" was the word. It didn't matter what your project would do.
What was important was how motivated you were to answer some question. And I had never thought that way. I always wondered what the projects that I was doing would be useful for, but, when you work motivated by your curiosity to answer questions for which we currently have no answers, you go beyond the frontiers of knowledge because you are not predicting the result, and, generally, the unexpected results that we get are grand.
And so, very frequently, real problems are resolved by means of the results that emerge from this research done solely from the genuine curiosity of scientists. So curiosity seems to be the keyword in this process. But, not just any curiosity.
There is a quote from Eça de Queiroz that says, "Curiosity is the instinct that inspires some to look through a keyhole and others to discover America. " So, this seemed to tell me that certain questions deserved to be asked. And it is about this scientific approach, this scientific curiousity, that I would like to discuss with you.
What are the questions that you want to answer? And to have that type of skill restored, one must go back to being a child. Children are always full of questions - "Where do babies come from?
" "Why is the sky blue? " "Why do I have to go to sleep now and why do I have to take a shower? " Children are always full of questions, but when we become adults, we become full of certainties.
We think we know who we are and how the world works, and we forget to ask questions. Then we forget that being a scientist is about wanting to break paradigms, having a genuine curiosity, and a willingness to change the world. When we turn on the TV, check social media, the newspaper, every day, what we see is a world full of certainties, of facts - Brazilian politicians are corrupt, Brazillian public health isn't functioning, public education is terrible, you must be careful on the street because it is all so violent - Then we forget that certainty leaves us in our comfort zone and that it's with questions that we grow.
If we were more scientific, if everyone here saw himself as a scientist, we would forget our certainties and ask questions. "After all, how can I improve education in our country? " "If I reduce social inequality, can I manage to make an impact on urban violence?
" So, to be a scientist is to bring more questions into play. It is about these questions that I would like to talk to you, my current questions, because since I started to do research, I have become more restless. I discovered that I could be a protagonist, and from all these problems that we see in the newspaper, I could pick one, one that might make my heart beat a little faster, and try to create a question, then design an experiment, achieve some result, and maybe change reality a little.
From this idea emerged a project called Cientista Beta. All through high school, I did research, and, after awhile, I didn't know what to make of that experience other than only tell people that I had done that. My father always told me that I had to write something about that, to tell young people they could experience that.
So many young people don't know that they could do this. Inside of me, I had a question that made my heart tighten every day, which was: What could I do with all that I had experienced? Is it possible to transform the lives of other young people like mine was transformed?
If you are a scientist and you have a question, you have two choices: you can put the question in a drawer and forget it or you can do an experiment. And from this emerged an initiative, called Beta Scientist, that connects Brazilian young people with science. What we do is, with a group of very committed and engaged people, we connect young people in high school to scientific projects.
We encourage these young people to look at the world with the curiosity of a scientist. We tell them that if they are anxious, it's not a problem, it's great, that the problems they see around them in the world can be resolved, and that they can create a scientific project and propose a possible solution. What we do is offer information about how to do research, mentors from all over the country who already do research and who assist these young people, and challenges.
So I ended up, in some way, answering a few of my own questions. That question that was stuck in my brain now had an answer: yes. To do a scientific project in high school, to have the curiosity of a scientist, can change young people's lives, and is changing the lives of young Brazilians.
I can see, in the future, how much this can transform, a little bit, our reality in education, in our country. How much more this is for young people than just creating projects. What we are creating is young people that create projects and create solutions.
Young people become protagonists who see themselves not as part of the problem, but part of the solution. As I am a scientist, the important part for me is the questions, and the question inside of me today is: what awesome things will these young people do? How are they going to surprise us?
And what I'd like to ask you is this, what is the question that moves you? It is about taking a new approach and about our own existence. What is the question you have when you go to sleep and wake up every day?
Are you dealing with this question, creating an experiment that brings you some results, a conclusion, and more new questions? In 2010, after that succession of events - doing a project, going to a fair, winning nothing, doing another project, going to a fair, winning nothing again - at some point I stopped going nowhere, that is, going to fairs and winning nothing, and I got a space at one of the world's biggest science fairs, that happens in the United States. And to be there, representing my country, completely transformed my life.
I remember entering the fair, my first time in the United States, my first time at an international event, the first time that I was going to present what I had been doing, to people who spoke other languages. When I entered the fair, there was a big sign that said, "Welcome to Tomorrow". "Bem-vinda ao Amanhã," in Portuguese.
And then I understood that in my quest for answers while I was doing projects, I was building a tomorrow that didn't presently exist. So, an idea I can maybe leave you with is to think about what is the tomorrow that you want to build. Listen to the questions that are inside you.
For when we search for these answers, we build a future that doesn't exist now and go beyond the borders of what we know. We create a better world, or, at least, we make ourselves better persons. After all, what we are, what we have experienced and what we know make us who we are today.
And it's the questions, those which we are incessantly seeking answers to, that make us who we will be tomorrow. Thank you very much.
