Istituto Gonzaga has founded a STEM High School in collaboration with the Ri.MED Foundation
Science, physics, statistics and computer science can be studied with teachers from the area’s main research institutes. A new type of campus that opens the door to the most advanced scientific and technological research, with the aim of bringing school to life as a complete learning experience, capable of projecting students into the world of work, with a wealth of high level skills.
The STEM (Science, Tecnology, Engineering, Mathematics) scientific high school will be ready to go at the beginning of the next school year, in Palermo’s historical Istituto Gonzaga. This is a new type of upper secondary school, which follows the Italian system of scientific high school, emphasising applied sciences, with a strong scientific curriculum, and an intensely international outlook. One of a kind in Italy, our STEM high school will prepare students for scientific studies at university, embracing school autonomy in order to respond to today’s main educational needs and the demands of the labour market.
Gonzaga’s STEM high school was planned in conjunction with the “STEM Academy” of the Jesuits in Detroit (USA), within the University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy. With the collaboration of prestigious partner bodies from the worlds of academia, science, research and innovation, that provide the project with specialist professional figures, know-how and research facilities.
The STEM high school is characterised by the super enhanced mathematics-physics-computer science-sciences block of studies; one science subject totally studied in English (CLIL); statistics and computer programming languages studied for the first two years; Chinese studied as a second foreign language, to give students another opening to that part of the world where, today, sciences are being developed to a greater degree; a course in Cultural Studies, which replaces Latin studies, to enhance our humanistic perspective and literary and artistic tradition; the use of workshops in scientific and technological laboratories as an introduction to scientific research methodology, conducted by professors and researchers from partner institutions. Students will embark on action-research work to be carried out both at school and in our partners’ scientific laboratories. Excelling students will receive support in applying to the University of Palermo’s scientific faculties, and will be given preferential consideration for the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre, USA.
This new form of cooperation between institutions of excellence has been approved through an agreement between the representatives of the partner bodies: Dario Avallone, Director of Research and Development of the Engineering group; Bruno Gridelli, Vice-President of the Ri.MED Foundation; Angelo Luca, CEO of IRCCS ISMETT, Palermo; Fabrizio Micari, Rector of the University of Palermo; Laura Raimondo, CEO of UPMC Italy; Father Francesco Tata SJ, Director-General of the Istituto Gonzaga.
“The STEM high school and the International Baccalaureate diploma”, adds Gridelli, Vice-President of Ri.MED, “are two strategically important initiatives that Ri.MED Foundation is proud to support because the first will attract students to biomedical research and the second is of paramount importance in attracting international researchers with school-aged children to the Carini Research Centre.