Abstract:

Among the issues educational systems around the world are facing, that concerning the need to encourage high school students’ STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) career aspirations certainly represents one of the most pressing. In this context, numerous studies have shown how the orientation initiatives proposed by universities or research institutions can effectively have impact on students' future decisions, as long as two elements are given sufficient attention. Firstly, participants must be able to actively learn, i.e., be involved in interactive or hands-on activities. Secondly, they should recognise the real-life relevance of STEM careers, their utility to society and to knowledge development [1].

An example of proposal that aims to promote STEM careers using these two ingredients is the INternational School on Modern PHYsics and REsearch INSPYRE [2], organized since 2011 by the Frascati National Laboratory of the National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), the largest facility in Italy devoted to the study of nuclear and subnuclear physics and its applications. The school is addressed to students attending the last two years of high school and gathers participants from all over the world.

INSPYRE is dedicated to the hottest topics in modern and contemporary physics and aims to present participants the most advanced research and its many real-life applications, while entering the places where this research takes place. For a week, in fact, participants experience the Laboratory environment, attend plenary lectures, discuss with researchers, socialize, and are asked to solve in group realistic scientific problems through laboratory-based activities.

Since its first edition in 2011, which hosted only 20 students, INSPYRE has considerably grown over the years, so much that now is able to welcome over 80 students and offer about 8 high-level laboratory-based experiences [3]. In this talk, we present the 2023 edition of INSPYRE, the first after the pandemic. We will analyse its main features and assess the impact it had on the participants, both in terms of satisfaction and in terms of encouraging scientific careers.

References:
[1] Kitchen, JA, Sonnert, G, Sadler, PM. The impact of college- and university-run high school summer programs on students’ end of high school STEM career aspirations. Sci Ed. 2018; 102: 529– 547. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21332
[2] INSPYRE website https://edu.lnf.infn.it/inspyre-2023/
[3] S. Bertelli et al., Experiences in Inspyre: international school on modern physics and research, 14th International Technology, Education and Development Conference INTED2020 Proceedings, (Valencia 2-4 marzo 2020), pp.8866-8874 (2020) ISBN: 978-84-09-17939-8 ISSN: 2340-1079, doi: 10.21125/inted.2020.2411

Keywords:

Higher education, STEM career aspirations, physics education.