97 students and 17 teachers from high schools from all over Italy: the first edition of the INFN STEAM Summer Camp has begun, a national summer program organised by INFN Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics and aimed at students in the 11th, 12th, and 13th grades of Italian secondary schools, including Italian schools abroad. Project partners are CINECA and ICSC National Centre for Research in High Performance Computing, Big Data and Quantum Computing.
The INFN STEAM Summer Camp opened yesterday, July 13, and will run until July 17 at CeUB in Bertinoro (FC). It’s an opportunity for students from across Italy to approach and delve into topics such as particle physics, supercomputing, and artificial intelligence, but it also offers a chance to explore the synergy between schools and industry and be inspired by the world of scientific research. Some of the participants were selected from among those who took part in INFN’s school projects this year, while others were chosen through a public call, based on their interest in science and technology.
“We’re very pleased to welcome to the INFN Summer Camp students from all over Italy, all motivated by an interest in scientific research and new technologies. The camp’s opening was marked by many questions, showing the students’ curiosity and drive to explore knowledge and the challenges of our time”, said Pierluigi Paolucci, INFN researcher and chair of the Third Mission Coordination Committee.
This morning’s program, July 14, focuses on particle physics, from the study of the Standard Model to cosmology, as well as on INFN and CERN in Geneva. In the afternoon, students will participate in a lab with games and virtual/augmented reality on scientific topics, created by the INFN Game project, which aims to use playful activities to bring the public closer to physics.
Tuesday, July 15, will be entirely dedicated to a visit to the Technopole in Bologna, where students will discover supercomputing, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing, as well as visit CINECA and INFN’s computing centre. A computing lab session will also take place in the afternoon.
Wednesday, July 16, will focus on science communication. There will be a workshop on scientific storytelling and comics as a medium for science outreach. In the evening, at 9:30 PM, the Rocca of Bertinoro will host the conference-show “Bits and Particles. A journey through art and science, from the Big Bang to supercomputing“. This INFN-curated conference-show will take the audience on a journey through the frontiers of contemporary scientific research: from cutting-edge fundamental science labs to technologies reshaping our understanding of the universe and the present. Through theatrical readings, music, and visual storytelling, researchers will guide the audience to the edges of particle physics: from the world’s largest accelerator, CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, to advanced neutrino detectors like the underwater KM3NeT experiment, to groundbreaking research on gravitational waves by the interferometers LIGO in the US, Virgo in Italy, KAGRA in Japan, and the future Einstein Telescope, that Italy is a candidate to host in Sardinia. The event will close with a public discussion with experts on the potential of current technologies like AI, and emerging ones like quantum computing: tools that are still evolving but are set to have a disruptive impact on the near future.
The INFN STEAM Summer Camp is a project developed through the INFN’s Third Mission Coordination Committee (CC3M), which supports Public Engagement initiatives from the research community through an internal peer-review process. The project is sponsored by MUR Ministry of University and Research, MIM Ministry of Education and Merit, the Emilia-Romagna Region and the Municipality of Bertinoro.
