First national week dedicated to the dissemination of technical-scientific disciplines: five students from the “G. Douhet” Military Air Force School in Florence are engaged in the realisation of a project on space weather.
Within the first national week (4–11 February) dedicated to raising awareness STEM disciplinesScience, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), established by law 187 of 24 November 2023, the Ministry of Defence has promoted their own initiative, organised by Undersecretary of State for Defence, Senator Isabella Rauti.
In order to encourage and promote the study of STEM subjects, Deputy Minister Rauti – with the delegation from the Department for Education and Equal Opportunities – invited students from the four Italian military high schools to try their hand at creating technical-scientific projects, under the guidance of four female Officers from the Armed Forces and the Carabinieri, holding degrees in STEM disciplines.
Among the young boys and girls who participated in the initiative, there were also five students from “G. Douhet” Military Aviation School of Florence, who, supervised by Captain Adriana Marcucci of the National Centre for Meteorology and Aerospace Climatology, have developed a project aimed at studying the final frontier of meteorology: the space weather. This discipline studies the effects of solar activity – electromagnetic radiation and charged particle flux – on the functioning and reliability of satellite and terrestrial technological systems, on which we are increasingly dependent.
The Educational Offer Plan Douhet, for several years now, it has planned for the enhancement of STEM-related disciplines, through an increase in teaching hours and encouragement for pupils to actively discuss and participate in solving real-world problems.
At the project presentation event, the Minister Guido Crosetto, in his welcoming message, highlighted how “these branches of knowledge – which have a very strong impact on innovation, economic growth, and job creation – affect the security of the Nation”.
In her speech, the Senator Rauti he stressed that “Stereotypes and conditioning must be removed to reduce the gender gap among graduates in these subjects; and investment must be made in STEM training, which guarantees access to the job market in strong and well-paid sectors.”.
For Undersecretary Rauti “Promoting STEM subjects becomes a systemic action for the country, but also for the future of Defence, which will increasingly rely on artificial intelligence, drones, big data, cloud computing, and cybersecurity, because new technologies are changing the conditions of military operations and influencing their effectiveness.”.
As well as in the traditional domains of land, air and sea, modern challenges are focusing on new domains such as Cyberspace but also the so-called underwater concerning the security of underwater infrastructure, a topic of international strategic relevance. Finally, the Space, which has become an increasingly strategic domain in a global defence perspective.
“The scenarios are of increasing complexity – concluded Rauti – and the ever-increasing hybrid threats; in the face of multi-domain challenges, the Armed Forces are working on multidisciplinary training and the use of modern and technologically sophisticated tools. The future of Defence will be increasingly interconnected with the development of STEM subjects, and the armed forces are called upon for ever-increasing inter-force and integrated interoperability, while respecting individual specificities.”.
At the conference, which opened with the video message from Eugenia Roccella, Minister for Equal Opportunities and the Family, the Undersecretary of State for Education and Merit Hon. Paola Frassinetti, ’On. Marta Schifone, lead signatory of the law establishing the National Week of STEM Disciplines, the Prof. Amalia Ercoli Finzi, from the Polytechnic University of Milan, ’English. Angela Natale, Chief Executive Officer of Boeing South Europe.
