Science that pulsates to transform itself into experience.

Science that pulsates to transform itself into experience.

Through museums, collections, and interactive spaces, Unicamp expands access to knowledge and brings the public closer to scientific production.

Faced with the metallic sheen of an ore, the near-perfect geometry of a crystal, or the silent impact of a meteorite, science ceases to be mere explanation and transforms into experience. At the Institute of Geosciences (IG) at Unicamp, knowledge begins with wonder: colors, shapes, and textures awaken curiosity and invite the visitor to look at the Earth in a different way. It is at this moment that something shifts. Learning is no longer just understanding, but making the senses pulsate.

At Unicamp, this transition takes shape in a network of museums, squares, collections, and interactive spaces that expand the boundaries of scientific dissemination. These are places where knowledge opens itself to the public and allows itself to be traversed by different perspectives—especially those of basic education students, but also of visitors who arrive driven by curiosity.

At the Institute of Geosciences, the "World of Minerals" collection transforms the visit into a sensory and discovery-based journey. Among displays of colorful minerals, fossils, meteorites, and geological maps, the space brings visitors closer to geosciences through fascination and observation. Conceived by Professor Maria José Mesquita, the institute's extension coordinator, the environment was designed to provoke questions and build bridges between science and everyday life.

Right at the entrance, the vibrant colors of the minerals spark curiosity: why does each one have a different hue? From there, the visitor is guided through concepts such as light incidence, crystallography, soil formation, and the internal structure of atoms. “This capacity to marvel at something is a starting point for education,” says Mesquita. “A person arrives here for another reason and, suddenly, is impressed by this universe.”

The proposal relies on non-formal education. Often, visitors arrive at the building for an event or lecture and stop in front of the shop windows. "It's a spontaneous experience of discovery," says the coordinator.

The space has also become a tool for connecting with schools and frequently sparks interest in the field. “Many students say that their interest in the area began with a visit like this or because of a teacher. Here they realize that it’s possible to study this, to understand what’s right under our feet,” says Mesquita.

If at the IG (Institute of Geosciences) science manifests itself through the materiality of the Earth, in other spaces of the University it unfolds in different forms of experience. For Professor Guilherme Marcom, coordinator of the Unicamp Exploratory Science Museum, this vocation lies in the very way the University understands itself. “Unicamp is a space where these multiple scientific, academic, and cultural characteristics are involved within this process,” he states. “Not as closed spaces, but as spaces open to debate and knowledge.”

At the Exploratory Museum, science is presented as an invitation to do, going beyond observation. In workshops, exhibitions, and interactive activities, concepts take shape. The visitor activates, experiments, makes mistakes, tries again. And, in this process, they cease to occupy the role of spectator to assume, even if only for a moment, the role of investigator.

According to Marcom, the space was designed precisely for this collective experience of knowledge. "Museums are spaces where we see a reflection of what a university is, in the sense of being a collective space, a place of experience, where people can come, feel good, and experience the production of knowledge."

Created in 2005, the museum originated off-campus in Lagoa do Taquaral, and since 2007 has occupied its current location, originally conceived as a tool for astronomical research. This origin remains imprinted in the space's purpose, which brings together science, culture, and different ways of looking at the sky.

Outside, the experience expands. In the Time-Space Plaza, the sky is part of the experiment and time becomes visible. The passage of hours is drawn on the ground, the Earth's movement is revealed in slow, almost choreographed gestures. Integrated into the museum, the plaza transforms the sunset into a meeting point and converts daily life into an open laboratory. Throughout the year, the space receives around 10 children and teenagers from public and private schools, in addition to the spontaneous public that circulates through the campus.

If at the Exploratory Museum science invites action and experimentation, in other spaces of the University knowledge takes the form of memory and collection. At the Unicamp Museum of Biological Diversity, time accumulates in the form of a collection. There are thousands of specimens of animals and plants organized over decades of research. Between display cases and collections, the visitor traverses traces of life and scientific work, a direct contact with biodiversity that, at the same time, reveals method, rigor, and history.

This experience, however, is not limited to the Campinas campus. At the Piracicaba School of Dentistry (FOP), science intertwines with memory. The Museum of Dentistry brings together more than 20 items from the 19th and 20th centuries and invites visitors to explore the history of the field through instruments, images, and environments that recreate old dental offices. Meanwhile, in Limeira, at the Faculty of Applied Sciences (FCA), the movement is different: science opens itself to questioning. In subjects such as Biology and Culture, students from different courses cross boundaries between areas of knowledge and reflect on the very foundations of science.

What unites all these experiences is a choice: not to simplify knowledge, but to make it accessible. Between experiments, landscapes, minerals, fossils, and encounters, the University reveals itself as a territory of learning in motion. A place where science can be seen, touched, and, above all, lived.

Knowledge that transcends time.

If in museums and collections knowledge is offered to wonder and experience, in libraries and archives it acquires another temporality: that of permanence, memory, and reflection. At Unicamp, this journey is sustained by a broad network of libraries, memory centers, and archives that accompany academic life and preserve the institutional and intellectual history of the University. More than 1,4 million books occupy the shelves of university libraries, and at the center of this system is the Cesar Lattes Central Library (BCCL), which, alongside the sectional collections, accompanies the daily lives of students, faculty, and researchers.

At the Central Library, knowledge is also built during downtime. Among the bookshelves and study areas, spaces for socializing and relaxation invite you to linger: places to read, rest, reorganize your thoughts, or simply relax between classes.

Overall, the Rare Books Library (Bora) stands out, where time takes on a different dimension. There, books and documents of historical and patrimonial value are preserved as material testimonies of thought and culture, accessible for consultation but protected by their uniqueness. At Bora, integration with cultural events has attracted an increasingly diverse audience. 

Around it, other libraries reveal the diversity of paths to knowledge: at the Institute of Language Studies (IEL), the Faculty of Education (FE), and the Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences (IFCH), critical thinking and intellectual production find refuge; at the Institute of Arts (IA), the collection engages with different languages ​​and artistic expressions.

In the biomedical fields, libraries such as those of the Faculty of Medical Sciences (FCM), the Faculty of Physical Education (FEF), and the Institute of Biology (IB) support research focused on life, the body, and health. In the fields of exact and technological sciences, units such as the Gleb Wataghin Institute of Physics (IFGW), the Institute of Chemistry (IQ), the Institute of Geosciences (IG), the Institute of Mathematics, Statistics and Scientific Computing (Imecc), and the Engineering Area Library (BAE) bring together specialized collections that keep pace with scientific and technological advancements.

But it is in the archives that the University reveals another layer: that of memory. The Unicamp Memory Center (CMU), the Edgard Leuenroth Archive (AEL), the Unicamp Archives System (Siarq), and documentation centers such as Cedae and CLE preserve documents, manuscripts, and records that narrate both the history of the University and broader social, political, and cultural processes. Here, knowledge not only accumulates, it circulates, remains, and transcends time.

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