Ciência, café e cultura - Miolo Ciência, café e cultura - miolo | Page 55

I had been observing and developing Scientific Cafés in Lyon, France, for
many years. I find this type of outreach very interesting as it allow s the
general public to not to interact with experts to talk about science and
its place important societal issues, but also to discuss these issues among
themselves in a relaxed atmosphere. The interplay between that private
space, at the table with some friends in a bar, coexists with a formalized pubic
space discussion of the challenges of our times and the place of science in
choosing a way forward. Indeed, my own developments centered on modify
the format to make those private space ideas available to the public space
discussion, something that can be hard to manage in a situation where non-
experts can hesitate to speak up.
I first visited Minas Gerais in 2011 and had the opportunity to observe some
very intelligent and motivated students participating in a café organized by
Ronan Daré Tocafundo at IFMG-MG in Congonhas. On the same occasion, I
was also excited to see the very innovative new café format, the Barômetro
which was being developed by Silvania Nascimento’s group at the UFMG ,
notably in collaboration with her doctoral student, a young design professor
from CEFET-MG , Claudia França. Barômetro smoothly blended expert debate,
electronically mediated public participation, and music to make for a very rich
and aesthetically pleasing 90-minute radio show.
In 2014, I returned with two colleagues to train a group of students, mostly
17 and 18 year-olds, drawn from the UFMG and from CEFET . In the space of
five days, these young people learned our French debate format and then
immediately applied the training in two sharply contrasted environments: on
one hand, a mixed class elementary school group in a community at Taquaril
district, Belo Horizonte, and on the other hand, to groups of high-performing
high-school students studying at CEFET . I was extremely impressed by the poise
and facility of our trainees.
I also was pleased to see that Claudia was leading a regular Scientific Café
series at CEFET , which built on the Barômetro experience but with further at-
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