Esperienza InSegna

RM@Schools partner CNR-ISMN took part to the 2023 edition of Esperienza InSegna (“Experience Teaches”) with a stand inspired by the book “Invisible Cities” by Italian novelist Italo Calvino, who was particularly sensible to environmental issues and sustainable cities and communities. The stand was titles “Chemistry: as invisible as Calvino’s cities?”. Chemistry is often conceived as a science of the invisible, due to its apparent inscrutability and because it concerns the infinitely small. In reality, chemistry always has a concrete and clearly visible impact on the world we live in. we do not talk about explosions, fumes and color changes, which some “mad scientist” causes in his laboratory for no apparent reason and as if he were a sort of “magician”. Let’s think of the usefulness of plastics, medicines, technological instruments which on the one hand make our lives easier, and on the other can cause problems for the environment or human health, due to incorrect management/use of chemical processes or products that chemistry creates. Unfortunately, chemistry is best known for its worst impact, the pollution and destruction of natural environments, so much so that the term “chemicals” has become synonymous with dangerous, harmful and to be avoided. Today more than ever it is necessary to reverse the paradigm and make chemistry visible and recognizable in its positive effects on the environment and in the cyclical use of materials, through the creation of targeted, sustainable and economic chemical processes, attentive to use and reuse of all available resources. To achieve this goal, it is of paramount importance that chemistry is well understood and disseminated in schools and in society.