My participation in Joves i Ciència

My name is Marta Gallego and, last year, I was accepted in a kind of research program, named Joves i Ciència, in which it is aimed to encourage teens to start in science.

This program has been carried through six years, and each teen promotion takes part on it during three years.

Well, on November 2011, our biology teacher told us about a studentship program faced to teenagers who were interested in science word; she said it would be great trying to join in! The idea sounded good to me and we decided to prepare everything to go in for Joves i Ciència.

What I had to submit, first of all, were my ESO science and English marks and a motivation letter in which I had to introduce myself and expose my interest and motivation to participate in it.

Fortunately, motivation letters were determinant to their decision, and I really showed on it my desires to take part on Joves i Ciència, so and e-mail was sent to me as I had successfully passed the pre-selection.

The following step wasn’t so relatively simple: two researchers, Antoni Rosell and Susanne Fietz, were going to interview me. They were going to ask me about my life style, my interests, my hobbies, and about issues related to the project that was awarded to me: “Why do we have this climate?”

All of this, in order to realize if I deserved one of those fifty-two places; if I deserved to be one of those fifty-two privileged students among eight hundreds.

Despite all my nervousness at the interview, they found on me whatever and, in the end, Planes de Son was waiting for me.

This place, located in Pallars Sobirà, near Esterri d’Àneu, was where the first program year took place.

During twelve days, I had the opportunity to learn from researchers of the Universitat Autònoma of Barcelona and working on a real investigation about how the climate has been in Planes de Son from two thousand years ago to the way it is nowadays.

What’s more, in our free time, it was given to us the chance to meet a Nobel Prize, to assist at many conferences, to visit de wildlife centre there, to look at the Sun and Saturn from a huge telescope...

And I am currently waiting for starting the second year.

This second year consists on staying during a time on summer in a research centre, working with professionals and with other teens.

There were many research centres to choose, from here, from Catalonia, and from the abroad (USA, Germany, Greenland...).

All the centres were interesting, but obviously, there are always those ones that attract the most of our attention, like the one in Greenland, in which it is possible to see and study the Northern Lights, or the ones in USA.

In order to award each centre to each teen, we were asked to do a scientific paper about whatever related to science that interested us.

I did it about how de environment can affect and modify our gene expression.

I looked for information in order to check if our life style and the way and the place in which we live determine the way we and our body act.

I talked about genetics, inheritance, I looked for real cases, and I finally verified my hypothesis.

Depending on the quality of my paper and my transcript, a centre or another is going to be assigned to me according to the list of preferences I gave them. In the first position, I decided for a biology centre in New York at the Rockefeller University; in the second one I chose one in Germany about biology, chemistry and physics; and the other ones I chose are about different aspects of biology, in Barcelona. And... No need to say that I hope to visit USA or Germany.

Finally, next year will consist on spending summer, too, doing a real research, also in foreign countries or here in Catalonia.

In order to conclude, just saying that I am really grateful for having been accepted in Joves i Ciència, because it has been offered to me the chance to acquire experience on what I would like to work on in the future and experience on life; and this is something that not many people have the opportunity to do.

Finally, I would like to say that everything was absolutely awesome in Planes de Son, but certainly, the biggest thing I got during those twelve days was the wonderful friends I found there.

Marta Gallego