Press Release 2018

The public presentation of the first videogame set in the biggest underground astroparticle physics laboratories in the world, where leading-edge physics research is carried out.took place on 27 May, during the Open Day at the INFN National Laboratories of Gran Sasso,. This videogame is the result of cooperation between researchers, communicators and developers, who have created a multi-platform product which can be accessed with a computer, tablet or smartphone: it is an instrument for active orientation, designed to bring students closer to the frontiers of physics and the opportunities available through scientific careers and it is intended for young people aged between 14 and 19, as well as their teachers. The videogame project is a result of the PILA (Physics In Ludic Adventure) project, financed by the Ministry for Education, Research and University (MIUR), and it was conceived by joint cooperation between INFN National Laboratories of Gran Sasso, the agency for scientific communication ‘formicablu srl’, the production company ‘IV Productions’ and with backing from INDIRE (the National Institute for Documentation Innovation and Educational Research). The videogame will be given out free of charge and, before finalising, it will be tested in schools by students and teachers. In this way the schools will be involved in an assessment pathway that will lead to optimising materials that can help to deal with physics in the classroom. This is a pathway that takes into consideration the need, when creating new educational pathways and those for enhancing human capital, for creating tools that speak the language of the millennials. Within this context, Gran Sasso Videogame was selected from almost three hundred entrants and voted the most significant out of 100 projects submitted to the MIUR under the category of “Human Capital and Education”.