The Festival
From 20 October to 1 November 2022, the Science Festival returns for a special edition that marks an important milestone for the event. In 2022, in fact, we celebrate twenty years! A rich and ambitious program celebrates this anniversary in the best possible way, a sort of hymn to returning to experience events in person, especially after the two difficult years we have all experienced.
A rich program of conferences, exhibitions, workshops, shows and other events, all linked by this year's keyword:
INGV participates with the exhibition 'Words from the Earth' Science helps us to understand the language of the Earth.
The street show Nursery rhymes and legends of the Earth. The laboratory The words of the earth and the laboratory finds the right word.
Two scientific talks are planned on: how earthquake communication has changed and The danger with is risk.
All the events are organized in collaboration with the INGV Environment-Earthquakes and Volcanoes Departments with the participation of many sections and researchers of the Body.
Conferences
Communicate risk and uncertainty
Alessandro Amato, Maurizio Pignone
Palazzo Ducale, Historical Archive of the Municipality
piazza G. Matteotti, 10 minor loggia
23 October, 17 pm
For over ten years, information on earthquakes in Italy and in the world has been contained in the articles and in the pages of the channels of the INGVterremoti platform. After the earthquake in L'Aquila in 2009 and the well-known procedural events that followed it, communication on EARTHQUAKE has changed radically, and with it the LANGUAGES used by the researchers who feed and implement it, adapting to new realities (social media ) and to an increasingly demanding and wary public. In this conference we will focus on some keywords that have accompanied this transition. They are SPEED (necessary during a seismic event), RELIABILITY (of published data and information), TRANSPARENCY (of processes and analyses), UNCERTAINTY (implicit in the communication of results and little accepted by the public).
The complicated communication of earthquakes
Nicola Alessandro Pino, Stefano Solarino
Baltimore Garden Sea-ty
31 October, 15 pm
Science communication is a delicate balance between different needs, especially in areas such as seismology, associated with potentially harmful consequences. The current pandemic is an example of this. On the one hand, the scientist, whose aim is to inform correctly, even by transferring basic tools for autonomous evaluations; on the other, the citizen who would like concise information, possibly devoid of technical terms. It is not easy to package a scientifically rigorous message, which is both understandable to a non-expert and respectful of data processing times, the uncertainties in the results and the need to review them in case of new evidence. Furthermore, on the one hand, the ambiguities generated by terms in common use, but which in the scientific field indicate specific concepts (e.g., intensity, danger, risk), or by the use of physical parameters that are now commonly used, contribute to these difficulties, but which synthesize articulated concepts (e.g., magnitude, hypocentre); on the other, the need to use intermediaries to disseminate information to a wide audience. In these aspects, the internet and social networks play a crucial role, where the scientific message is in competition, or even opposed, to the sensationalist and often unfounded message of improvised communicators. The competition is joined by the "keyboard lions", which present very captivating but often scientifically unfounded information.
Exhibitions
Listen to the voice of our planet
Galata Museum of the Sea
October 20 - November 1
weekdays 10:00 - 16:00
eves and holidays 10:00 - 19:00
The Earth speaks to us. A landscape with its rocks shaped by time, an aurora borealis, a volcanic eruption, a sudden earthquake, what do they mean? An exhibition in several rooms dedicated to the different languages that our planet uses to express itself. The exhibition will guide the viewer in the interpretation of the various languages, through explanatory panels, images, instruments and sounds. A story to discover together with the scientists who interpret the different signals: seismology, geochemistry, geology, volcanology, marine sciences, climate sciences, space meteorology, and observation from space. With a fundamental purpose: to learn to listen to the Earth.
Special events
Information and science are (not) a game
Galata Museum of the Sea, Auditorium (Stefano Solarino, Elena Eva)
21 and 24 October, 10:00 and 11:00
The activity is configured as a special event for the secondary school. The purpose of the laboratory is to convert scientific information relating to an event into compact and scientifically reliable news using a limited number of words. Participants must carefully evaluate the style and technical content of the language to be used and select the relevant information for the public's understanding of what happened. As in the wireless telephone game, in this journey from the event to its description it is possible to "lose" some concept or describe a different or incomplete reality with respect to the fact. A discussion will follow in the workshop. The participants are divided into teams and listen to the description of a natural event (earthquake, volcanic eruption, tidal wave) from a guide or a researcher. The narration is pompously full of details, some actually useful for framing the context and the phenomenology, others for scenographic enrichment but redundant for the purpose of describing the event. At the end of this phase, the participants create a piece of news that is "published" on the bulletin board, a metal blackboard or a sheet of plywood depending on whether rewritable magnetic cards are available or not. In the online case, appropriate ways of proceeding digitally must be foreseen. The news will contain a given number of words, which varies for each round of the game. This requires synthesis and selection on the part of the players. In the first round, players will be able to use words chosen independently. In the second round they will be chosen from a group of predefined words. Verb conjugations, feminine-masculine-singular-plural will not be considered errors. At the end of each round, the completeness, scientific adherence, possible shortcomings, errors and above all the possible alternative interpretations for that sentence will be discussed.
Street art to tell about our planet (edited by Maria Grazia Ciaccio, Gianfilippo De Astis, Gaia Soldati, Maria Giovanna Piangiamore, in collaboration with Ile Flottante)
Various locations
28 October, 12:00, 15:00 and 15:40 (in front of the Galata Museo del Mare)
29 and 30 October, 11am, 40pm and 15pm (Piazzale delle Feste, Piazza Matteotti)
The street artists of the Ile Flottante theater group, a consolidated reality in the production of professional shows, will involve and excite people of a wide range of ages thanks to shows that will have legends, nursery rhymes and lyrics as 1 Date of printing : 21/02/2022 poems about earthquakes, volcanoes and natural hazards. There are 3 stations in the city center along a route that will combine theatrical language and scientific language: here the shows (with single sessions lasting about 30 minutes) will be repeated in a continuous cycle, with an hourly frequency to be established, on Fridays, Saturday and Sunday (possibly 21-22-23 October with the possibility of postponing everything to the following weekend, 28-29-30 October, in case of unfavorable weather conditions). The event is intended for a broad target and for a general public, involving people of all ages, entertainment and topics. In fact, jugglers and fire eaters will entertain the public who, subsequently, will be able to listen to the scientific explanation of the phenomenon from which the representation was inspired. The researchers of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, INGV (MG Ciaccio, G. De Astis, G. Soldati and GL Piangiamore), who have long been passionately dedicated to scientific dissemination, will be alongside the street artists also to answer questions and curiosities.
Our Labs
From common language to geosciences (Stefania Amici, Maria Di Nezza)
University Library of Genoa
October 20 - November 1
weekdays 9:00 - 16:00
eves and holidays 10:00 - 19:00
How can a commonly used word make us discover concepts and phenomena in the world of geosciences? How can we discover and memorize the meaning of some scientific terms? Many words in common use have a totally different meaning in geosciences and describe natural, anthropic phenomena and geophysical processes: for example the proper name "Aurora", which is also that of the princess in the fairy tale of "Sleeping Beauty"; the “model” in a fashion show; or even the "bar", one of the Italians' favorite places for breakfast. In this playful-didactic laboratory, boys and girls will be guided, through a SCALE-UP (Student Centered Active Learning Environment Upsidedown Pedagogy) approach, to discover what these words are and what meaning they have in areas such as seismology, geochemistry, geology, volcanology, marine and climate sciences, space meteorology and space observation. The activity is thought of as synergistic with the "Words from the Earth" exhibition: the words are in fact chosen so as to be connected to the topics covered in the exhibition, in which, through the immersive path, they take on sounds, colors and images that reinforce their scientific meaning.
EI sell online
Cleaner air thanks to leaves and lichens
Webinar with Aldo Winkler
24 October
12:00 - 13:00
The monitoring of atmospheric pollution with magnetic methods consists in considering PM10 filters, leaves and lichens as receptors and collectors of magnetic atmospheric particulate matter. This particulate is generated by combustion processes (industrial, domestic or vehicle emissions) and abrasion (as occurs with vehicle brakes, considered the main source of harmful metal dust in areas with intense urban traffic). Pollution magnetic particles are usually spherules or granules of varying size and shape, often associated with heavy metals. In this virtual visit, the researchers of the INGV paleomagnetism laboratory will present the main methodologies used in magnetic monitoring studies of atmospheric pollution, in particular the use of natural indicators, such as leaves and lichens. Finally, the more recent environmental applications in the Cultural Heritage sector and the innovative analyzes on the effects of the lockdown caused by the pandemic on atmospheric particulate matter in Rome.