Introducing young people to science to intrigue them, but also to train a new generation of professionals capable of innovating: this is the objective of the first week dedicated to STEM, i.e. the disciplines that concern science, technology, engineering and mathematics, scheduled from 4 to February 11th.
Established on the initiative of the Ministry of University and Research in collaboration with universities and research bodies, the week includes initiatives throughout Italy.
"When we talk about the future, innovation and progress we talk about STEM", observes the Minister of University and Research, Anna Maria Bernini, in a note.
"We need highly specialized professional figures and to increasingly encourage students to choose these disciplines."
For this reason, the ministry has promoted initiatives for student orientation and a scientific degree plan.
"We work every day - adds Bernini - to provide those who study with all the useful tools to cultivate their vocation and talent".
Accompanied by the hashtag #settimanastem, the week also includes the social campaign 'I am Stem' promoted by Mur e, to testify to the importance of science in society.
It sees in the front row witnesses such as Nobel Prize winner Giorgio Parisi, aerospace engineering pioneer Amalia Ercoli Finzi, physicist Lucia Votano, neuroscientist Giulio Deangeli, astronomer Marica Branchesi and marine biologist Mauro Celussi.
"The attempt to promote scientific culture is often confused with the study of technical-scientific subjects, but this is not the case", observes Lucia Votano.
"All skills are needed, but it is also appropriate to consider that the world and the global economy revolve around the production of knowledge and insights that translate into innovation."
The challenge, according to Votano, is "to prevent scientific and technological advances from translating into economic progress for a few and to ensure that they become social progress. For this reason - he adds - it is necessary to give all young people the possibility of accessing knowledge of scientific culture, which allows them to invent new things, produce new knowledge, moving the country forward".
It is a discussion that applies "for all of Europe, now crushed between scientific and economic giants" and that also applies to adults, because "it would be good for all citizens to acquire greater scientific ability, understood as a critical sense and the ability to learn to argue on the basis of facts, possibly accompanied by numbers; Not having these skills today is equivalent to when, a century ago, one did not know how to read and write".
Many initiatives are planned throughout Italy, such as the 'Stem Lab of Geosciences' of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, the virtual reality events aimed at young people and families at the 'Leonardo da Vinci' National Science Museum in Milan, doors open to students and workshops organized by various universities, such as those of Brescia, Pavia, Siena and Ferrara.
"A life as a Stem" is the event organized on the 9th by the Sapienza University of Rome, while meetings on physics for children, neutrinos, space and the Moon are proposed by the University of Roma Tre.
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