Three Days, One Shared Sky: Italian and Scottish Students Building Bridges Through STEM

Three Days Together: Building Connections Through Generation STEM

It does not happen very often that a collaboration born through screens, messages and meetings at a distance manages, at a certain point, to become something simpler and, at the same time, more real: people finally meeting one another. So when the students and teachers from Wallace High School in Stirling arrived in Italy for their visit from 24 to 26 September 2026, there was no need for grand words to give meaning to those days. It was enough to watch the students. At first, there was some hesitation, a few carefully chosen words in a language that was not their own, and those slightly cautious smiles that often accompany the first meeting between two groups. Then, little by little, the distances began to shrink. Not only the geographical distance between Italy and Scotland, which remains considerable on any map, but the more difficult distance to measure: the one between people who, until the day before, had known one another mainly through a project.

The Scottish delegation was accompanied by teachers Derek Manson and Philippa Benson, while at IIS “Ciampini-Boccardo” the three days were organised and shared by Corrado Campisi, Maria Teresa Lauria and Alessandra Plotegher. They were not, however, three days that had begun from nothing. Generation STEM had already brought these schools together through “Touching the Sky”, a project in which Italian and Scottish students had worked alongside Afghan students involved through Learn Afghan, sharing questions about science, technology, the atmosphere and space. Until then, much of that journey had necessarily taken place at a distance. But working together through a screen is one thing; walking along the same streets, sitting at the same table, entering the same laboratory, discussing a question or laughing about something that had never appeared in the programme is quite another. And perhaps it is precisely in these apparently minor circumstances, the ones that rarely find their way into reports and project documents,  that an educational experience begins to reveal what it is really worth.

The first day took us to Turin. There was a city to discover, of course, and there were museums, history and technology. At the National Automobile Museum, the students did not simply observe the long history of engineering and design; they also took part together in a a hands-on workshop on hydrogen, allowing science, technology and sustainability to become something they could explore side by side. The day continued with a visit to the Egyptian Museum and a walk through the historic city centre. Yet while everyone was understandably focused on what there was to see, another small transformation was taking place almost unnoticed. Conversations became easier; groups which, at first, had formed almost naturally according to nationality began to mix; English ceased, for a few hours, to be the language of an exercise or a lesson and instead became the means through which someone could ask a question, tell a story, make a joke or simply invite another person to come and look at something together. No teacher could have planned every one of those exchanges, and perhaps that is precisely why some of them mattered so much. International education is often described through objectives, programmes and outcomes, all of which are necessary; but sometimes its value can be seen much more simply, in two young people from different countries discovering that they have something to say to one another.

The following morning brought the Scottish students into the daily life of IIS “Ciampini-Boccardo”. They entered the laboratories, worked alongside Italian students and were officially welcomed by Headteacher Mario Agostino Scarsi, the school leadership team and representatives of the city of Novi Ligure. Radio PNR, which has accompanied several stages of our educational journey, also welcomed the Scottish delegation during its morning broadcast. That same morning gave us the opportunity to look backwards and forwards at the same time. We presented the results of “Touching the Sky” and of the stratospheric balloon mission carried out on 26 May, but we also introduced the students to the new direction that Generation STEM will take during the 2026/27 school year: the exploration of extreme environments. The deep ocean, Antarctica, the stratosphere and space may seem very far removed from the everyday experience of a teenager; and yet each of these environments forces us to ask extraordinarily concrete questions. How can we communicate where conventional systems are no longer sufficient? How can an electronic instrument withstand pressure, extreme cold or isolation? How can robots and sensors reach places where human beings cannot? How can we collect information, transmit it and transform it into knowledge? And what can students learn from the scientists, engineers, researchers and professionals whose work takes them to the limits of environments that we normally encounter only in books or documentaries? The purpose of the project is not simply to provide answers. It is to help young people develop the confidence, knowledge and curiosity needed to ask better questions.

The programme also gave our guests the opportunity to discover Novi Ligure through the Museo dei Campionissimi and the Museum of Illusions, before everyone gathered for lunch at the educational restaurant run by the school's Food and Hospitality programme. Once again, something that might appear secondary became part of the educational experience itself: students and teachers sitting together, tasting dishes prepared for the occasion and discovering that hospitality, too, is a form of communication. A project such as Generation STEM may have science at its centre, but a school is made up of many different skills, and one of the most rewarding aspects of welcoming guests is allowing them to see that richness rather than only the part connected with a single subject.

In the afternoon, however, an object usually associated more with communication than with engineering took on a different meaning: a microphone. In the multimedia laboratory, Italian and Scottish students recorded a podcast together, talking about two years of collaboration, their impressions of the visit, what they had experienced and what they hoped might happen next. It would be easy to describe it simply as another activity within a very full programme. But that would be to miss its meaning. For those hours, the microphone became a STEM tool. The students had to listen, reflect, formulate questions, find the right words and turn an experience into something that other people could understand.

There is, after all, more than one kind of precision. A circuit requires precision; a measurement requires precision. But there is precision, too, in a question capable of reaching the heart of a problem, in listening carefully before responding, and in explaining an idea without losing its scientific meaning. This is why podcasts and scientific communication are becoming an integral part of Generation STEM. In the coming months, students will not simply sit in front of researchers and experts waiting to receive information. They will prepare for those meetings, study the topics beforehand, formulate questions, interview the people they meet and then try to explain to others what they have understood. Science must certainly be studied and experienced; but if knowledge is to leave the laboratory and travel, someone must also learn how to communicate it. The podcasts, seminars and video contributions produced throughout this journey are gradually forming a digital memory of the project.

The official Generation STEM YouTube channel has therefore become an evolving archive devoted to scientific and educational communication, where the voices of students, meetings with experts, podcasts and the different stages of the project can all find a place.

Generation STEM – Official YouTube Channel

The third day changed the perspective once again. The Scottish delegation discovered Novi Ligure, its history and its cultural heritage, accompanied by the guides of Oltregiogo. Maria Teresa Lauria acted as interpreter during the visits, and anyone who has ever tried to describe a place to someone seeing it for the first time knows that translation rarely means simply finding equivalent words. Sometimes it means helping another person understand why a building, a street, a story or a small local tradition matters to those who live there. There was time for history, art and culture, but also for those ordinary moments that rarely appear in a programme: walking together, talking, waiting for one another, sitting around a table in the evening and realising that conversation had become much easier than it had been two days earlier.

These things may appear to lie at the margins of a STEM project. I am increasingly convinced, however, that they lie very close to its centre. Technology does not develop outside society; science is not made by instruments alone; innovation has meaning because there are people and communities who use it, question it and sometimes depend upon it. And an international partnership between schools cannot live indefinitely on documents, videoconferences and scheduled activities. Sooner or later, if it is to become something lasting, the people involved must have the opportunity to know one another in the ordinary simplicity of daily life.

None of this would have been possible through the efforts of only a few people. Behind those three days stood the work of teachers, students, school staff and a wider community willing to support the experience. The official account published by the school recalls the contribution of the Municipality of Novi Ligure, the guides of Oltregiogo, Radio PNR, the Food and Hospitality programme and the many people who worked quietly behind the scenes. It also recalls the support of Fondazione Roma and Dr Franco Parasassi. These acknowledgements matter, because educational projects, once completed, can sometimes appear simply to have happened. In reality, every bus that arrives, every laboratory that is opened, every meal that is prepared, every microphone that is switched on and every guest who is welcomed is the result of someone deciding that the experience is worth making possible.

When the Wallace High School delegation finally returned to Scotland, the three days came to an end, but the relationship did not. Photographs remained, conversations remained, a few new expressions learned in another language, perhaps a few jokes that would make little sense to anyone who had not been there, and memories that no official programme could ever have predicted. More importantly, there remained the awareness that what had begun as cooperation between institutions was slowly becoming a relationship between people. The schools intend to continue working together through seminars, scientific activities, new STEM projects and international initiatives.

For those who would like to see the photographs and read the full account of the three days, the story is available on the official website of IIS “Ciampini-Boccardo”: Read the full story: “Three Days of Meetings, Collaboration and Looking to the Future”

We often say that schools must prepare young people for the future. It is a sentence repeated so often that sometimes we risk no longer asking ourselves what it really means. Of course, it means giving students technological skills, scientific knowledge and the ability to understand a rapidly changing world. But perhaps it also means something simpler and quieter: a young person meeting someone from another country, listening to a different voice and discovering that, after all, the questions they are asking are not so different.

The Scottish students have returned home. The next part of our journey will once again take place, at least in part, at a distance. But that distance is no longer quite the same. It now contains faces, voices, conversations and days spent together. There are still oceans to explore, the cold of Antarctica, the stratosphere above us and, farther away, space. There are instruments to build, questions to ask and people to meet.

And there are young people, in different schools and different countries, preparing to explore them together. Different places, different stories, the same curiosity. And, above them all, one shared sky.