Students from the municipality of La Paz, Arauca and others from Bogota, participating in workshops ... [+]
The road between Arauquita, relatively near Colombia’s border with Venezuela, and the nation’s capital in Bogota stretches over 800 kilometers (500 miles), but for one week in October, a special group bridged that gap in more ways than one.
Marly Rueda, 18, was among students from the municipality of La Paz, Arauca to attend science workshops run by NGO Lab Al Campo and the fifth regional edition of the Colombian “Clubes de Ciencia” – part of Science Clubs International (SCI) an NGO which runs immersive science workshops. The workshops bring together keen kids with working scientists in a range of fields.
The region of Arauquita still bears the scars of more than 50 years of armed conflict and there is still armed groups in the area despite the signing of a peace accord between Colombia’s government and the FARC guerrilla in 2016.
But for a week, it was science at the forefront for Marly and her friends.
“For me, you get to feel, think and experiment, that’s what attracts me to science,” Marly said as crickets chirp in the background, back home in the Arauquita countryside.
“There are many difficulties, but there are ways to find solutions,” she said,
“Each of our instructors had something different to offer and they showed us that as rural students, we have the abilities we need to solve problems.”
“It’s important for women to study science because they are ones in charge at home and the ones that look for positive solutions.“
Valeria Jimenez was a co-instructor at Bogota event in early October 2019, which thanks was an alliance between the Universidad de los Andes, Colombia Science Clubs, Lab Al Campo and with the support of Seis Continentes Tourism and SVG IPS.
She said STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) allows people to solve problems in daily life and fulfill specific needs that communities have.
"The students talked about what they know about each topic and how they have solved problems in their own context and communities using that previous knowledge. We learn about each other, which was so cool."
"It allows them to dream as the little scientists they already are!" she added.
Jimenez said 21 students in total, 10 from Arauquita and 11 from Bogota were able to share experiences. Back home, the Arauquita students have been participating in cacao and water treatment projects. The Bogota students did a community garden.
During the plant pathology workshop the students had a particular focus on cacao because it is one of the most important crops in Arauca, the department (state) where Arauquita is located.
"Families live on that crop and work hard each day to improve the quality and production of cacao – They have a deep relationship with their plants and animals,” she said.
Jimenez said Arauca cacao is recognized as the best in country, a very high quality crop, which has replaced illicit coca crops.
“They started to work in cacao instead of coca. The relationships of the children changed very much, they told us that, “ she said, ”It gave peace to the community and many things started to change.”
In other parts of Colombia, there are efforts to use technology to take cacao to the next level in the country.
Cristian Blanco-Tirado, is the leader of the Nextcoa project and a chemist at the Industrial University of Santander in Bucaramanga, Colombia.
The idea behind the project is to take the large amount of biomass left over from the harvest — 12 pounds for every pound of cacao beans — and turn it into a range of valuable products that farmers can use to increase their income.
Blanco-Tirado and his team have developed a range of cacao spin-off products including 100% cacao chocolate bars that incorporate natural sweeteners and thickeners; beer; juice and other foodstuffs.
There are others working on helping farmers to produce a better crop as well.
Mark Guiltinan and Siela Maximova run Penn State University’s cacao research lab and are now working on Cacao for Peace, a project funded and managed by USAID and the USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service with the aim of helping farmers with the difficult task of taking up the cultivation of cacao, a fairly finicky crop compared to coca.
Separately, Ken Foster, a researcher at the department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University has been working with universities in Colombia to develop a storage bag for harvested cacao that will allow farmers to store the crop for longer, giving them a greater chance to get a better price for their harvest.
With all these initiatives, combined with a new generation of rural kids who are in touch with both the latest science and the realities of the countryside, there might just be a chance for a sustainable peace built on cacao in Arauca.
#News | https://sciencespies.com/news/these-kids-have-come-500-miles-to-do-science-and-make-a-difference/
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