Over 50.000 participating students. Bianchi: "Physics feeds our curiosity about the world"
The award ceremony for the winning students of the XXXVI National Physics Olympics was held yesterday in Senigallia. In 100 they faced the final challenge for the podium, five overall winners (four golds and one silver) making up the national team. The national competition took place in attendance at the "Enrico Medi" scientific high school in Senigallia, from 20 to 23 April. During these days, female students and students faced a physics test in the laboratory and solved three theoretical problems. "A tachometer", "electrostatic pendulum", "thermodynamic cycle", "a special spring" are the titles of both theoretical and experimental tests, with which they challenged each other in the final phase.
The participation of girls and boys has doubled compared to last year: over 50.000 students from 750 schools participated in this edition of the National Physics Olympics.
The five winners will represent Italy at the European Physics Olympics which will take place in Ljubljana, Slovenia, from 20 to 24 May.
The selection process, which brought the best one hundred to meet and compete in Senigallia, began last December with the school competition. 4.500 students assigned to 63 national poles had access to the next second level challenge, which took place in February.
In these three days, female students and students also shared experiences: in addition to facing the national competition, they participated in conferences on scientific topics and had the opportunity to discuss common themes and interests.
The Physics Olympics are aimed at secondary school students to promote and support the educational potential of this discipline. The competition is included in the annual Excellence Enhancement Program of the Ministry of Education. The National Physics Olympics are organized by the Ministry of Education in collaboration with the Association for the Teaching of Physics (AIF).
“Congratulations to all the students who enthusiastically participated in this thirty-sixth edition of the Physics Olympics”, said the Minister of Education Patrizio Bianchi. “Studying and becoming passionate about science is important to understand the reality in which we live. Physics, in particular, teaches us not only to study natural phenomena, to quantify them and to find relationships and reciprocal interactions, but it feeds our curiosity towards the world and, therefore, others. Studying physics allows us to read the world around us as a set of relationships: we thus learn to enrich our thinking by crossing diversity ".
The winners:
- Giacomo Calogero, Scientific High School "Banzi-Bazoli", Lecce
- Guglielmo Di Grazia, “Lorenzini” Scientific High School, Pescia
- Carmine Foggia, Scientific High School "Frisi", Monza
- Massimo Gasparini, “Fermi” Scientific High School, Padua
- Luca Milanese, "Da Vinci" Scientific High School, Terracina