Ten thousand "likes" on Facebook, an incessant word of mouth and a membership that doubles every year: science is all the rage among young people, especially if it is told in an amusing and fascinating way. This is what happens to Golinelli Foundation's Science in Practice, whose summer edition is held until 29 July in Bologna. Thanks to this initiative, 600 teenagers, after school, can try their hand in the laboratories of the Opificio with the mystery of the DNA of apples or with the implications of a whodunit in which they transform themselves into detectives and criminologists, to verify in the field that science is not only an abstract matter, but a fantastic investigative tool.
"We started with a pilot project in 2009 with 23 students - says the manager Raffaella Spagnuolo - and every year we have doubled, up to reaching the top this year". The summer edition offers pupils of III, IV or V a week's work, at a cost of 80 euros, in addition to 25 scholarships made available by the Foundation. “The goal – explains Spagnuolo – is to give young people the opportunity to verify whether science can become their profession in life. At the Opificio they have to develop a project, even if it is short, and measure themselves against the satisfactions, but also with the frustrations that this entails. The laboratory provides insight into the timing of experiments and failures. Once an incredible case happened: they were working with human cell lines, but they all died in an excruciating heat wave. It was sad, but also interesting from an educational point of view, because the mechanisms of cell death were understood. And the value of what we do lies precisely in this: in understanding”.
In the 2016 edition, the third graders are measuring themselves with reconstructed crime scenes, with biological traces and DNA analyses. "Everything is fine
week we invent a mystery, it's a very funny thing, even if in the end the culprit is almost always the laboratory tutor. In this context, young people learn to work in teams, but also to compete between groups and to discuss the experiments done together”.
The slightly older students are instead working on foods that contain gluten. “There is a large increase in people who are celiac or who believe they are. Therefore analyzing this protein is important, as well as evaluating the different products on the market or the minimal traces that can be found in other products".
The third topic on the agenda is the DNA of apples: “Don't think they are all the same – underlines Spagnuolo – they are all good, apart from Snow White's. But we are analyzing five with genetic differences, to see how they can be improved and crossbred." At the end of the week, do you close the experiment and move on? “Yes, but not before having looked for a way to disseminate what has been done on a mass level. Communicating is fundamental for science – concludes Spagnuolo – because, as Einstein said, only when you really understand something, are you able to explain it to everyone simply”.
