97 students and 17 teachers from high schools across Italy: the first edition of the INFN STEAM Summer Camp kicks off, a national summer camp organized by INFN – Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (National Institute for Nuclear Physics) and aimed at students in their third, fourth and fifth years of Italian upper secondary schools or Italian schools abroad. Project partners include CINECA and ICSC – National Research Center 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 the CeUB in Bertinoro (FC). It will be an opportunity for students from all over Italy to connect and to explore topics such as particle physics, supercomputing and artificial intelligence in greater depth. It will also offer them the chance to discover the synergy between schools and industry and to be inspired by the world of scientific research. Some of the participating students were selected from those who took part this year in INFN’s school projects, while others were chosen through a public call based on their interest in science and technology
Programme
This morning’s program, July 14, focuses on particle physics—from the study of the Standard Model to cosmology—and on INFN and CERN in Geneva. In the afternoon, students will take part in a laboratory featuring science-themed games and virtual and augmented reality activities, organized by the INFN Game project, which aims to develop playful initiatives to bring the public closer to physics.
Tuesday, July 15 will be entirely dedicated to a visit to the Bologna Technopole, where students will explore supercomputing, artificial intelligence and quantum computing, as well as CINECA and the INFN computing center. A hands-on computing laboratory session will also take place in the afternoon.
Wednesday, July 16 will focus on science storytelling. A workshop on scientific storytelling and comics as a communication tool will be held, while in the evening, at 9:30 PM, the Rocca di Bertinoro will host the conference-show “Bits and Particles. A Journey Through Art and Science, from the Big Bang to Supercomputing.” Organized by INFN, the conference-show will guide the audience on a journey through the excellence of contemporary scientific research: from cutting-edge laboratories in the field of fundamental sciences to the technologies reshaping our understanding of the cosmos and the present. Through theatrical readings, music and visual narratives, researchers will accompany the audience to the frontiers of particle physics: from the world’s largest accelerator, CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, to advanced neutrino detectors such as the underwater KM3NeT experiment, to groundbreaking research on gravitational waves conducted by the current LIGO interferometers in the United States, Virgo in Italy and KAGRA in Japan, and the future Einstein Telescope, which Italy has proposed to host in Sardinia. The concluding dialogue between the audience and experts will focus on the potential of already established technologies, such as artificial intelligence, and emerging ones, such as quantum computing—tools that are evolving but are set to have a disruptive impact in the near future.
The project
The INFN STEAM Summer Camp is a project carried out through the INFN Third Mission Coordination Committee (CC3M), which supports Public Engagement projects promoted by 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.”
Comment by Pierluigi Paolucci
“We are very pleased to host at the INFN Summer Camp young people from all over Italy, motivated by their interest in scientific research and new technologies. The opening of the Summer Camp was marked by many questions, demonstrating their curiosity and enthusiasm for knowledge and the new challenges of our time,” comments Pierluigi Paolucci, INFN researcher and Chair of the Third Mission Coordination Committee.