In October 2024, as part of the ABRACTION project, I had the opportunity to deliver two-day workshops at the Festival della Scienza in Genoa. Working with 10 different groups of middle and high school students, I facilitated interactive word-ladder tasks. This hands-on approach not only encouraged young students to explore semantic taxonomic relationships between words (e.g., cat is a type of felin; freedom of speech is a type of right)  but also actively promoted essential skills, such as teamwork, critical thinking, and effective communication.

In 2023-2024, I participated in the “Penne Amiche della Scienza” program, exchanging letters with middle school students from Caserta, southern Italy, to share insights about my scientific career, answer their questions, and inspire them to pursue science while challenging stereotypes about gender and socio-economic barriers.

From November 2023 to May 2024, I designed and led workshops at all levels of public school, from primary to high school, in Bologna (Italy), reaching a total of approximately 300 students and pupils.

These workshops aimed at enhancing students’ lexical and semantic categorization skills by constructing taxonomic relationships between words through the use of Word Ladders, a gamified mobile app developed by the Abstraction ERC project.