Have you ever clicked on the word “scientist” on the internet, selecting only the images? Based on our search history, the algorithms will provide certain images, that is, the ones that will appear to me will certainly not be exactly the same ones that will pop up on my neighbor’s screen. Regardless of that, though, I bet we’ll all see men, mostly, or women, mostly white, wearing glasses and long-sleeved aprons. And more: in most of the figures there will be test tubes and pipettes with colored liquids. In my case (and in that of many other colleagues), the routine can be quite different.
People’s imagination is populated with images like these to represent a scientist. In 2019, the Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovations and Communications and the Center for Management and Strategic Studies carried out the fifth round of the survey “Public perception of science and technology in Brazil”. The results are not very encouraging. Although 62% of those interviewed declared they were interested in issues related to science and technology, access to information produced by Brazilian science leaves much to be desired, so much so that only 10% of the survey participants were able to name scientists, while only 12% could indicate names of scientific institutions in the country.
We’ve come a long way in the last three years. The pandemic has brought a part of the scientific community closer to society, and different initiatives have shown the diversity of people who do science, although such diversity is still insufficient: it needs to be expanded and more equal. But the idea that science is done in highly specialized laboratories remains. In other words, science would be far from the reality of most people. It is true that many scientists work in these closed and controlled spaces. But they also frequent the most varied environments, from the interior of caves to the bottom of the oceans – the latter, in my case.
But what is the daily life of these scientists outside the laboratories like in practice? Different areas of knowledge demand different strategies for obtaining and analyzing data. Ocean science, for example, often collects samples and data in submerged areas of coastal and marine regions, which are accessed by vessels of varying sizes — from small boats that allow you to explore marshy shallows, to huge ships that allow you to reach deeper areas of the ocean.
The vessels function as true floating laboratories, and sometimes they even have state-of-the-art analytical equipment. In material collection campaigns, called oceanographic expeditions, scientists spend days, weeks or even months on board. The work routine on board differs from the one we take on land. On deck, aprons and goggles give way to life jackets and sunglasses; in the vessel’s laboratory, equipment and reagents are tied by cables, so as not to succumb to the sea’s balance. The high cost of oceanographic expeditions means that not a minute can be wasted, hence the activities take place 24 hours a day (of course, always respecting the rhythm of the ocean, the height of the waves, the intensity and direction of the wind).
Vessels, however, are not crucial for all ocean science, which can also be carried out in emerged coastal regions, such as beaches and mangrove forests, only with the aid of a computer that analyzes data measured via satellite or evaluates mathematical models. Samples and data can be collected in fishmongers, in a waterside conversation with fishing communities, in meetings with decision makers thousands of kilometers from the coastline and even in libraries, retrieving historical documents such as newspaper articles and photographs. airlines.
Recently, while looking for shells in the sand with my nephew, I was struck by the amount of microplastics present. This observation, made in a recreational moment by the sea, encouraged me to open a new line of research in the laboratory.
The diversity of environments conducive to ocean research reflects the diversity of environments in which science can take place. It happens everywhere.
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Renata Nagai is an oceanographer and professor at the Federal University of Paraná. The text honors World Oceans Day, celebrated on June 8.
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