Canal Jovem Cientista (Young Scientist Channel)

Channel of science communication with the mission of promote empowerment for the population through scientific knowledge

The "Canal Jovem Cientista" (Young Scientist Channel) has in its essence the objective of promoting scientific knowledge and culture in an accessible language - for people of all social classes, genders and ethnicities. Thus offering the approach to public understanding of science and technology through virtual and face-to-face activities and informal educational experiences.

To achieve this goal, we want to be in the same place of debate about fake news through the social media , in order to elucidate scientifically verified facts to the public. On Facebook and Instagram we post various contents related not only to biology, but also current interests, pop culture and the youth world, always correlated to academic life, science and technology. In addition to the mentioned social media, we use Youtube and Tiktok, which has become our main platform for producing short and objective videos.

In addition to the lay public, we also seek to carry scientific issues - such as public policies on climate change - with interviews directly to democratically elected public representatives (such as deputies, senators and presidential candidates).

Brazil faces a credibility crisis in relation to the image of scientists before the population. Scientific information has come to have the same value as a personal opinion in public debate and, with that, fake news has spread rapidly in the last days of social networks. As the pandemic mounts, false information about miracle drugs (among other forms of denialism) has become a public health risk. Data show that 9 out of 10 Brazilians with internet access have already received at least one false content or misinformation about the coronavirus.

In parallel with this “fake news epidemic”, scientists do not appear among the most reliable sources of information. Only 12% of respondents listed academics in this way, while 15% named religious leaders, 26% doctors and another 26% journalists. At the same time, 90% of Brazilians could not cite the name of a scientist and 88% could not say where scientific research is carried out in the country.

Therefore, it is necessary to bring the non-academic public closer to scientific concepts and scientists themselves. To humanize the scientist and show that he is more of an ordinary citizen, and not someone with hidden interests, as conspiracy theories claim.

Among the 48.5 million young people aged between 15 and 29 in Brazil, 11.1 million do not study or work, totaling 23% of young people in the country.

In parallel with these data, other studies indicate that the internet was more accessed by young people aged between 18 and 24
Among the purposes, 94.2% of people aged 10 and over who accessed the Internet did so to send or receive text, voice or image messages through applications other than e-mail. Watching videos, programs, series and movies was the motivation for 76.4% of this contingent, followed by chatting via voice or video calls (73.3%) and sending or receiving e-mails (69.3%).

From the data presented, we can observe the need and the precariousness that young people have in teaching. However, even if its lack is evident, we should not confuse lack of opportunities with mere disinterest, because it is not. The young person wants to know something interesting or at least a technological novelty.

This youth is the future of the country and will elect his representatives in the future. Without a solid educational base and with denialist movements on the rise, preventive intervention in the population becomes necessary so that public policies that harm global health are not maintained and are not approved in bills harmful to human, animal and environmental health.

All content production originates from everyday public issues. Our team understands that every question, no matter how basic, is a valid question. Therefore, in addition to our individual observations of daily life and news in newspapers, we also use digital platforms such as Google Trends and forums such as Reddit and Quora to find out what are the questions about science that the population is interested in knowing.

Brazil is a continental-sized country and stands out in the global health debate, both in climate and pandemic aspects. The country is in 6th place in the ranking of the largest populations in the world and holds 61% of the territory of the Amazon Forest.

Both in the impact of climate change and in the pandemic, the impact of individual attitudes and public policies of this population affect the rest of the world, given the deforestation in the Amazon and the emergence of the Amazonian variant p1(501y.v3) of Sars-cov-2.

Impacts like these for global health could be avoided with a population that had more contact with scientific culture, being better able to distinguish facts from misinformation or conspiracy theories.

The channel is at this stage of development because it has been implemented on social networks since 2018 and already has a considerable number of followers. The expansion process took place through the increase in the number of team members, the production of content in different social media and, consequently, the increase in the number of followers, supporters and sponsors – which help to make all the work possible.

In short, all our technology is driven by the organic reach provided by social networks. Our goal is to be in the same place where fake news is, so this is indispensable and inseparable from our strategy of reaching the general public to provide a significant social impact.

We currently have over 30,000 followers on social media and +500,000 views. On average 2-3 million people reached/month, when in full swing. By the end of 2022 we aim to double this reach and triple the number of views.

While it would be in our interest to know the true impact we are capable of making, we believe that there is no way to measure it. These are qualitative results that over the years have shown the difference we can make. In the smile of every child who was at an event or who had fun with one of our videos. Or even the young people who were inspired by us to enter the university in Biology.

We want to multiply these transformations and reach the millions of young people who can discover themselves as passionate about science, as we are.

We integrate 2 SDG's Quality Education and Climate Action.

Specifically the 4.7 and 13.3 targets, which both have the respective indicator:

To what extent (i) education for global citizenship and (ii) education for sustainable development. 
At the end of the next 2 years we will be able to measure the progress of the implemented project.

The only problem our team currently faces is acquiring financial self-sustainability. Because without it, the volunteers give up on the project and we are left behind. Likewise, without financial resources we cannot invest in quality equipment or reserve a recording location for scientific communication videos.

Our team is made up of graduated professionals or in progress in the areas of natural sciences (biology, physics and chemistry) and in communication. Thus, 4 biologists, 3 biomedical professionals, 1 nutritionist, 1 chemical engineer and 2 journalists.

During all the years of the team, we have always emphasized to invite people who were residents of Baixada Fluminense, a peripheral area of the state of Rio de Janeiro with a set of municipalities that suffer from social inequalities. We believe that people who come from these more peripheral places have a lot to show to the world, and they deserve to have access to the same opportunities as those who come from more privileged places in our society.

We seek for black people and LGBTQIA+ to integrate our team. Actually, our team is mostly made up of female scientists. In this way, we look for a group as much diverse as possible to achieve a representative communication for all social diversity.

Currently, our team has an institutional relationship with the Oswaldo Cruz Institute (Fiocruz) - the most prominent biomedical research institution in Latin America -  in which we develop researches on scientific communication on climate change. Our team strives to produce accessible scientific content in a popular language, using concepts from biology and digital marketing to reach and sensitize the public on social networks. While the link with Fiocruz is being developed at the Laboratório de Avaliação e Promoção da Saúde Ambiental (Laboratory of Assessment and Promotion of Environmental Health), in a research that, in its hypothesis, believes that through the creation of Scientific Dissemination contents in different digital technologies, It is possible to provide subsidies for teaching changes in the biosciences and health area for the construction of adaptation measures to climate change.

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