Pupils in France and England win Native Awards 2019

Every year, Native Scientist Awards recognise the creativity of pupils who participate in the Native Schools workshops.

The success of Native Awards, running since 2014/2015, lies in the increasing number of pupils who participate in the Native Schools workshops. Ahead of each workshop, pupils are asked to draw a scientist and to write a sentence about what they would do if they were a scientist. Sentences and drawings are evaluated at the end of the school year and the most original ones are selected by the Native Scientist team and collaborators to receive a Native Award.

Interestingly this year, 60% of the sentences and drawings were from girls and 50% of all drawings depicted women scientists, while 20% of the sentences focused on important topics, like climate change and environmental pollution.

Joséphine, 10 years old, who participated in a French workshop in London won the “Best Sentence” Award

Joséphine sentence focused on a delicate and timely matter: pollution and its impact on our planet. Joséphine told us about her love for nature and how she believes that scientists, through knowledge dissemination, could help to build up humanity’s respect towards nature and our planet.

The “Best Drawing” of 2019 belongs to Matilde, 9 years old, who participated in a Portuguese workshop in France. Matilde found the workshop “very interesting, and thought that the scientists were approachable and very nice”. When she grows up, she wants to be a vet because she loves animals.

In her drawing, Matilde captured how a scientist behaves in a laboratory environment with the safety gear on. The vivid colours used and a smile on the scientist’s face depicts how their days start in the laboratory, committed to discover something new in their field of study! In her drawing, Matilde also touched another important subject, which is that women, and not only men as often thought, can be scientists!

Native Scientist offered a branded tote bag and the book “Outside”, autographed by the author Maria Ana Peixe Dias, to the winners. Native Scientist co-founder Joana Moscoso says that: "The moment of looking at the finalist entries and vote for the winners of the Native Awards is one of my favourite times at Native Scientist. The diversity of styles, from serious to fun portraits of science, from solo scientists to scientists working in a team, or from time machines to cures for diseases, is amazing. With over 1000 pupils participating in our workshops every year, it is with great excitement that Joséphine and Matilde are presented as winners of the Native Awards 2019”.

About Native Scientist

Native Scientist is an award-winning European-wide non-profit organisation that promotes cultural diversity in science, education and society. Native Scientist provides science and language workshops, science communication training, and bespoke projects for various institutions, including schools, universities and embassies. The work developed connects pupils with scientists to foster science and language literacy through role modelling and science and language integrated learning. Founded in 2013, their work reaches over 1,200 pupils a year and they count with a network of over 1,000 international scientists.