Arts and science in Italy: from high schools to CERN

Creativity and vision capability are common to many disciplines and are involved in artistic and scientific thinking and activities. Scientists and artists are often asked to see and think beyond the perceivable reality, to imagine aspects of things and events, which can be better seen from an unusual perspective. "Art & Science across Italy" [1] is a European science communication project lead by the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) in collaboration with CERN. The main idea is to put in practice the basic concept of the STEAM field in which neither STEM nor arts are privileged over the other, but both are equally in play. Therefore, our aim is to engage high school students with science using artistic languages, regardless of students’ specific skills or level of knowledge. Aspiring to create an informal learning environment conducive to nurturing creativity, inquiry and enjoyment in science learning, the project is premised on the view that, since “science is an activity that involves creativity and imagination as much as many other human activities”, arts-based activities may constitute a suitable approach towards integrating creativity, imagination, and science in school settings. The project is now running the third edition (2020-2022). Here we will describe the methodology used, how the project is structured, and some results obtained in the first two editions in which more than 7.500 students coming from about 200 Italian high schools participated.