Students of the Secondary School Angeleta Ferrer in Barcelona had the occasion to know the PHOTOTHERAPORT project and learn about light-emitting implants and light-controlled drugs.
In the context of a collaboration between IBEC and the Secondary School Angeleta Ferrer in Barcelona, Ekin Opar participated in this educational activity and worked side by side with a group of students, introducing them to the subject of photobiomodulation. Ekin is a postdoctoral researcher involved in PHOTOTHERAPORT project and she works at the Nanoprobes and Nanoswitches Laboratory from the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), coordinator of the consortium.
During last February and March, a group of five 12 years-old students from the Institut Angeleta Ferrer Scholl worked closely with Ekin Opar and had the opportunity to develop a scientific project related with light and biology. Taking PHOTOTHERAPORT project as basis, the students learnt about the scientific method and how a researcher organizes its ideas and practical experiments to get to a scientific relevant conclusion.
The students thought of a biological problem related to light and had to propose experiments to determine whether their hypotheses were correct or not. In this case, they looked at the phototropism phenomenon of plants, and how their aerial parts are attracted to light. They realized experiments with potatoes and onions and get to some conclusions following the scientific reasoning. During activity lifespan, Ekin went to the school two times to meet the students in person, and afterwards she had several online meetings with them to fine-tune the details of their projects.
At the end of the activity, projects were presented in the form of a scientific poster in a «mini congress», with the assistance of teachers, family, and friends. In addition to scientific knowledge, they have had the opportunity to meet a researcher up close and be able to find out about her career and what the day-to-day life of a person dedicated to experimental science is like.
