With almost one thousand events in total and 342 participating companies, the sixth edition of Didacta Italy, the most important fair on school education in Italy, opens tomorrow (Wednesday) at 9.00 am at the Fortezza da Basso. This year, Didacta is dedicated to the writer Italo Calvino, on the centenary of his birth.

The inaugural ceremony will take place at 9.30 am at the Lorenese theater, after the greeting of the president of Florence Fiera, Lorenzo Becattini, will speak Dario Nardella, mayor of Florence and the senator Gian Marco Centinaio, vice president of the Senate. The event will continue with the video message of the Minister of Education and Merit, Giuseppe Valditara, and the speeches of: Eugenio Giani, president of the Tuscany Region; Cristina Grieco, president of Indire; Girolamo Turano, councilor for education and professional training of the Sicily region; Leonardo Bassilichi, president of the Florence Chamber of Commerce and the director of Didacta International, Reihnard Koslitz. The journalist of La7 Flavia Fratello will moderate the event.

The programme of events of this first day of the fair is rich. At 11.00 at the Lorenese theater the conference “From the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) to the STEAM (Science Technology Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) opens with the participation of Vincenzo Schettini, professor of Physics and author of the best Seller “the physics we like”; and Arturo Galansino, general manager of the Palazzo Strozzi Foundation. The event will be conducted by the columnist of Corriere della Sera, Beppe Severgnini.

In the afternoon, at 2.00 pm, the conference “free and free to be: a school for equality, an opportunity to reflect on the role of the school in promoting equality”, with the aim of overcoming and deconstructing the stereotypes that affect educational paths. Among the speakers Cristina Grieco, president of Indire, Clara Rech of the Directorate General for the student, the inclusion and school orientation of the Ministry of Education and Merit and Alessandra Nardini, Councilor for Education and professional training of the Tuscany Region.

We will talk about school buildings at the “School Building: the coordinates of innovation” conference to be held in the Sala della Scherma starting at 2.30 pm with the participation of the architect Stefano Boeri and Andrea Russo, CEO of Mr Digital. A stimulating and constructive discussion with the aim of carrying out the process of modernization of the classrooms, creating innovative, flexible, multifunctional environments that are increasingly connected and digital and at the same time capable of welcoming the changes in teaching and learning methodologies, based on the new possibilities offered by technology.

In the Green Arena, among the various events on the ecological transition cured by the ecologist Rossella Muroni, at 3.30 pm, the spotlight is on the meeting by Elettricità Futura entitled “Green Jobs in the electrical sector. Teaching the energy transition, going towards new job opportunities”.

In the three days of the fair in the Arsenal Pavilion it will be possible to visit, for the first time in Florence, the photographic exhibition “The legacy of Falcone and Borsellino” (already presented last October at the first Sicilian edition of Didacta), which traces the main steps of the life of Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino and is enriched with a new photographic panel on the arrest, on 16 January, of the fugitive mafia boss, Matteo Messina Denaro. The exhibition is promoted and created by Ansa together with the Ministry of Education and the Department of professional Training of the Sicily Region as management authority of the European Social Fund.

The Playroom of Register.it will also be at Didacta in Florence on March 10th with its digital education and cybersecurity workshops for primary and secondary schools. The playroom, (a project of the CNR IT and Telematics Institute) will present to the teachers the multimedia and hard didactic materials developed for a conscious use of the internet by students, such as the manifesto “Learning Cybersecurity at school” with the ten basic rules for safe navigation and the video game Nabbovaldo, designed to bring children and teenagers closer to the issues of computer security.

Didacta Italy is organized by Florence Fair with the scientific coordination of Indire and Giovanni Biondi, in partnership with Didacta International and with an organizing committee composed of the Ministry of Education and Merit, Ministry of University and Research, Tuscany Region, Municipality of Florence, Florence Chamber of Commerce, Unioncamere, Itkam and Destination Florence Convention & Visitors Bureau.

www.didactaitalia.it

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