Our favourite audience remains children, young people, and their teachers.
Projects to enhance scientific culture, workshop activities, open lessons, cycles of conferences and sessions in schools represent our main forms of interaction with the younger public.
Since we started recording the activities (2015 - first on an online database, now on the Third Mission Portal), we have recorded around 700 initiatives aimed at the world of schools, organised by the Departments and individual teachers.
To learn more about the projects and initiatives, the tabs at the end of the page are available.
BAI (University scholarship for teachers)
We aim to bring together different educational realities, establishing and strengthening a constructive dialogue with teachers from schools of all levels in the area. It is a real exchange of values for the benefit of young people.
The busy annual programme, offered by no fewer than fifty professors from all Departments of the UPO, aims to delve into current issues (sustainability and transversal paths for orientation) with a focus on teaching and the minimum knowledge required of students in the first year of University.
Chimicamica
The Pharmacy Department created this project together with the Novara Sviluppo Foundation and the IBIS Foundation to give new stimuli and training opportunities to the teaching activities of local primary schools, in the context of learning science and approaching the world of scientific research.
Alternative educational paths are proposed, with a "let's experiment together" approach, to offer children the opportunity to tackle hands-on and experiment with scientific concepts and notions.
Energia in Energia – The science contest
This is a science dissemination project on the correct and rational use of energy, born from an idea of 3i group and DiSIT, and carried out by the IDƐALE association, with the support of the City of Alessandria and the Provincial Education Office of Alessandria and Asti.
It is a real science competition in which schools and classes compete with ideas for the future. At the end of an initial training period, each class presents a project that represents its own idea of respect for the environment and redevelopment of urban ecosystems.
The Chemistry Games
Every year we host the Chemistry Games, the cultural event organised by the Italian Chemical Society since 1987, which aims to stimulate love for this discipline among the young student population and also to select an Italian team to participate in the International Chemistry Olympiad.
Website of the Chemistry Games
World Water and Environment Days
To mark World Water Day (March) and World Environment Day (June), DISIT and DISSTE, in collaboration with the AMAG group, offer workshop activities in the various scientific areas to primary school and middle school students in the Alessandria area.
The two events aim to raise awareness among new generations of issues relating to water and the environment and their protection.
Teaching mathematics
In schools
In 2018, DISIT signed an agreement with the “Paolo e Rita Borsellino” Comprehensive School and the “Rita Levi Montalcini” Comprehensive School of Civitella-Torricella (TE) to launch the research-action-training project “Teaching mathematics in schools". The project aims to carry out innovative teaching activities in the first cycle of education and involves mathematics teachers and pupils from primary and middle schools.
Over the years, long-term and vertical mathematics activities have been designed and developed which involve an ever-increasing number of teachers and students (now more than 400). The working groups made up of teachers and researchers collaborate and share ideas and experiences as in a community of practice and investigation. The group's monthly meetings take place in person at DISIT. National conferences and conferences have been organised every year at the end of the cycles.
Piccole zucche crescono (Little pumpkins grow)
In 2016, a collaborative relationship between DISIT and the "5° Circolo" Education Department of Alessandria began, by which educational courses were created for the students and teachers of the School.
Skills-based teaching was the cornerstone of the courses, which saw continuous development over time, making progressively calibrated adjustments based on the needs of the learners:
- “OrientAttivamente” (ActiveOrientation)
- “OrientAttivamente 2” (ActiveOrientation 2)
- “Impariamo dalle zucche” (Let’s learn from pumpkins)
- “Piccole zucche crescono” (Little pumpkins grow)
We have designed and developed educational experiments on the teaching/learning of science, mathematics, English and Italian. We have created multidisciplinary paths with real-world tasks and innovative teaching methodologies for the development of transversal skills. We studied and observed natural phenomena, with the use of scientific instruments, favouring laboratory methodologies, discussion and comparison.
Every year 250-300 students participate in the project. At the end of each cycle, a ceremony is organised in the DISIT main hall with the awarding of certificates.
QualunqueMENTE
QualunqueMENTE is a science dissemination project of DISS. We create educational activities for schools at the laboratories of the School of Medicine in Novara, aimed in particular at secondary school students. These activities allow us to understand the impact of the latest technologies on different biological fields: basic research, applied research, diagnostics and the development of new therapies.
We organise:
- laboratory activities, which allow students to put into practice the knowledge learned in books and make it their own
- SOS Summer of Science (summer school)
- refresher masterclasses for high school teachers;
- dissemination events aimed not only at schools, but at the general public, such as "Researchers and snacks".
The teaching laboratory we use has all the equipment needed to carry out the main biological and biotechnological experiments: from PCR equipment (polymer chain reaction for DNA amplification) to electrophoresis equipment, including microscopes and material for microbiology. We are also able to design laboratory experiences on request, to be carried out directly in the schools that are interested.
The project is almost unique in the area and we plan to extend it to middle school students.
Scienza sotto la Cupola (Science under the Dome)
This annual festival is held in the Broletto of Novara. For three days, normally in April, conferences, seminars, workshops and activities are organised by UPO together with the "Science is Cool" association, ITIS "Omar", and the Province and City authorities of Novara. The festival embraces various themes, to engage students and the general public, and involve them as much as possible in discussions and experiments.
The activities range from solving problems with probability theory to developing critical knowledge of information; from the impact of chemistry on everyday life, to topics such as chaos, entropy and reorganisation for survival; from the relationship between chemistry and art and archaeology, to the understanding and remodulation of mental images in architecture.
School for informed citizenship
For some years now, DISEI has presented the School for Informed Citizenship, which began with the name "Constitutional Information". The project is based on the link between university and school, forming part of citizen engagement initiatives, and includes a series of seminars on the three pillars on which the teaching of civic education stands: study of the Constitution, sustainable development, digital citizenship.
We also focus on topics of great importance such as financial education, the culture of legality, and policies to combat inequalities. The seminars are accompanied by a series of video lessons uploaded to YouTube:
YouTube channel of Constitutional Information
UPO Biobank meets young people
This is a scientific citizenship project that UPO Biobank, our biobank, presents to students in the fifth year of secondary school.
The activity takes place in four phases:
- online in-depth session with teachers
- administration of a questionnaire to students over 18, to investigate the level of knowledge and attitude towards biobanks and active participation in biomedical research
- preparation and presentation of a short video on the project themes by each class involved in the initiative
- video contest: the winning class will be rewarded, and the video with the most votes will be published on the university's official channels
- day of discussion at the University, in which students meet researchers and can delve deeper into the topic from a scientific and social point of view, discussing critical issues, doubts and fears that emerged from analysis of the questionnaire.
Joining the initiatives of a biobank means actively participating in scientific research, helping you become aware of the profound scientific and social revolution underway, and contributing to forming a new participatory, inclusive and responsible model of citizenship, ethics and construction of scientific knowledge.
UniStem Day
UniStem Day is an annual international scientific dissemination event dedicated to high school students, which (since 2009) has offered the possibility of approaching innovation research, knowledge and public debate starting from the results of studies on stem cells.
It is a day of meetings at the university with an intense programme of presentations, open discussions, film screenings, recreational moments, and visits to laboratories, which foster relationships with researchers and provide a concrete and emotional experience of the work involved.
We participate in UniStem Day every year, offering programmes that arouse great interest among young people and their teachers. For 2024, the date is Friday, March 22, 2024, Campus "Perrone," E. Perrone Street 18, NOVARA. All details, in the project sheet
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