1,500 students from around the world visit Virgo remotely with PICO project

As part of the EU-funded PICO (PhysICs fOr all) project, the European Gravitational Observatory (EGO) in Cascina, Italy, organised three remote guided tours of the Virgo gravitational wave detector for a total of 50 schools and 1,500 students from all over the world.

The guided tours were conducted, in English, by researchers from the international Virgo scientific collaboration. The participating students were all over the world: Greece, Spain, Italy, Romania, France, Germany but also the United States, Brazil, India, Mexico and Uzbekistan, overcoming language and time zone barriers to have the opportunity to visit Virgo.

The aim of the project is to offer students, particularly from middle and high schools, the opportunity to understand the workings of a major scientific infrastructure such as Virgo and to actively involve those schools that, for logistical or financial reasons, are unable to travel to Italy for an in-person visit.

PICO (PhysICs fOr all) aims to raise people’s awareness of fundamental and cutting-edge physics and the impact that discoveries in this field have on their daily lives, with a specific focus on equity, diversity, inclusion and gender equality. Most PICO events will take place during and around the European Researchers’ Night (2024 and 2025) in 4 countries (Greece, Italy, France and Spain), but other activities are planned throughout the year, such as ‘Researchers at school’, an initiative where students can meet female researchers working on frontier physics, and virtual visits to fundamental research infrastructures such as Virgo.