Abstract:

The current pandemic threat forced worldwide society to change in several aspects aiming the survival and rethinking the way to live and to relate among each other. Those changes also drew attention to the science production field, whether in search of effective medicine and vaccine, technologies to help with social distancing, communication, learning and teaching methodology or linguistics, and accessibility. In this context, numerous virtual spaces on social media-centered the attention, mainly in the field of education. Even though those spaces were already used regularly as extensions for online learning and sharing information, it is within the pandemic that they took a central role in education, emerging as a safe path, due to social distancing and lockdown plans in many countries. Thereby, we aim to discuss through this work positive possibilities to learn and share science despite the odds of the pandemic menace. The discussions here intended to take form through an experience report about the seminar called Physics Week, organized by teachers of the Federal Institute of São Paulo - IFSP. The annual seminar gathers local Physics undergraduate students and teachers during a whole week in which plenty of activities take place throughout the campus such as lectures, workshops, experimental demonstrations, and research presentations. Due to the pandemic, the seminar in 2020 was thoughtfully organized online which caused new challenges to arise for both teachers and students involved.

Thinking of discussing these challenges, this experience report is arranged in five sections:
a) the pandemic context in Brazil: summarizing the impact of the new coronavirus spread in the country as well as the political and social issues of social distancing guidelines;
b) current challenges for the Brazilian scientific community: pointing out the struggles with science funding and access for Brazilians;
c) inside Physics Week: highlighting the seminar organization including location, region aspects and attendants profile;
d) Physics Week Online: discussing the strategies applied to secure students access and attendance, selection of multidisciplinary topics covering several science fields and the attempt to shift the experimental face-to-face observation aspects of the event to an online platform; and finally
e) Reshaping possibilities: discussing the online seminar coverage from local to a national extent and its inclusive aspects.

Switching from a dynamic on-site seminar to a completely online event proved to be a tough challenge in many aspects, nevertheless, the final results turned out to be positively impressive. The use of interactive tools like chat windows on Youtube and Stream Yard, online forms from Google, and the production of audiovisual content required intensive training and collaborative work from the organizers in a short limited time. However, the extent of the seminar granting the possibility to share, learn and dialogue about science’s multiple facets with people from across the whole country surpassed the borders of a local event implying a more democratic and inclusive perspective to it.

Keywords:

Physics, online seminar, science, pandemic, Brazil.