September, S&T month once again! Part II – A Proposed Forum: “Knowing Your Scientists”

We, who have embraced science as foundation for our profession, owe it to the Filipino people to share, inform, prove, and play the role of being researchers or scientists.

Information Dissemination – this comes in the form of reaching out to places other than just Metro Manila, making ourselves available as invited resource speakers, lecturers, advisers, mentors, etc., by imparting and/or sharing expertise to people or community hardly sprinkled with S & T information.

Proof – the better proofs for an individual who has established oneself as a science researcher or scientist, are translating research outputs into publications in accepted (possibly ISBN-accredited peer-reviewed journals as well as inclusion in books, CDs, including contributions to nationally and internationally published encyclopedia.

The barometer of success of the researchers/scientists out-put are the impacts made in the academe, in the science community, socio-economic well-being of stakeholders (especially benefiting the less fortunate/privileged sector of the population), contribution to the nation’s economy and social being, both in regional national, and global. Other measures of success by researchers and scientists are conceived innovations, designs, methodologies being patented, publications cited by peers in science, and books/publications being accepted as main references or text books.

Playing-the-Role-of – What he less science-oriented, exposed people expect is to see researchers and scientists as hands-on , down-to-earth individuals translate their S & T out-puts in Research and Development (R & D) in “lay-manized” manner, devoid of technical terms, easy to understand and appreciate!

Truth is, to the non-science oriented individuals, the ‘lingo’ of scientists is ‘Latin’ or foreign to them to comprehend. This perception leads people to being alienated from even reading, listening, attending S & T fora, or viewing scientific presentations. Worst scenario is aggravated when students think negatively about taking science-related courses (these being difficult to study), and start imagining scientists as bearded, old-looking (at times weird human species), to be associated with!

Antidote to S & T Misconceptions

This writer, aware of the need to further educate a greater segment of the Filipino population on science and technology, and possibly respond the oft-repeated questions: How Does One Become a Scientist?”, “When does a researcher earn the title of Scientist?, or “What Makes One a Scientist?”, has pursued his advocacy of ‘bringing science and scientists’ to the rural communities – where these are most needed! He started this advocacy during his watch as Executive Director of NRCP-DOST. Firstly, establishing NRCP Regional Clusters in Visayas and Mindanao, with Associate and Regular members based in the regions as nuclei of the clusters, and secondly, organizing yearly Outreached Symposia all over the country, hosted by SUCs and HEIs. Here themes were agreed upon by NRCP Main office and the collaborating institutions and resource speakers were specialists in their respective fields.

This time the proposed Forum theme shall be “KNOWING YOUR SCIENTISTS”, a revival of the outreach program activity and submitted for funding by NRCP-DOST. Understandably, the resource speakers shall be culled from the young and not-so young Filipino Scientists. For Leyte, to be launched in Leyte Province’s District II Area II-B, the forum shall be hosted by the Burauen Comprehensive National High School, Burauen, Leyte. Participants shall come from the 19 secondary schools in the towns of Burauen, Dagami, Dulag, La Paz, Julita, Mayorga, andTabon-Tabon. The resource speakers will present their papers in an autobiographical mode – centering on how he/she became an established scientists, his contributions to Philippine science growth and development.

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NEXT TOPIC : “Wonder of the Tree called Coconut”

SHARE S & T THOUGHTS through E-Mail: drpacjr@yahoo.com.

By: Dr. Paciente Cordero, Jr.

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