DiaSorin Foundation presents the ‘Mad for Science’ project aimed at high schools

This morning the DiaSorin Foundation presented its projects and, in particular, the “Mad for Science” project, during the round table “Science: a passion on the school desks”. The president of the Foundation, Francesca Pasinelli, Anna Brancaccio, director of the Ministry of Education, Carlo Rosa, CEO of the DiaSorin Group, and Giorgio de Rita, general secretary of the Censis Foundation took part in the presentation. Born in the 2016/2017 school year, Mad for Science is a national competition aimed at scientific high schools and classical high schools with a biomedical curvature path, which focuses on the school laboratory, a concrete and effective tool to make students understand how it works the scientific method. The aim of the competition is the design of 5 laboratory didactic experiences on specific themes, which in this year’s edition concern the sustainable development goals of the UN 2030 Agenda. Each high school with a team, made up of 5 students and a science teacher, develops a project in collaboration with a scientific institution of its territory. The eight best enter the final Challenge, which this year will be held in Turin on 7 October, where an independent jury composed of authoritative representatives of the scientific academic world and civil society, will identify the winners. “We live in the land of paradoxes: we are in the last places in terms of the number of researchers compared to our European partners, yet in recent years we have registered an increase in enrollment at Stem faculties. The degree of scientific education of Italian girls and boys has, for many years, been inadequate to the complexity of the world in we live in and lower than that recorded in the most advanced countries. At the same time many young Italian researchers are recognized among the best in the international field, as confirmed by the data of the latest Erc Consolidator Grant with our scientists at the top of the ranking. we need to recover lost ground and support the many Italian research excellences more ana investing above all in the school where children meet science for the first time “, underlined Giorgio De Rita.” Unfortunately – he added – there are more and more children who go abroad than those who return to our country. To keep our researchers we must give them the right conditions, and it must be said that the Italian background uncertainty represents a huge brake. We must aggregate the funds and give the children the certainty that these funds will be stable and will allow them to work at their best “.