Students' vision and representation of gender-inclusiveness in science

The contribution presents data and lesson learned on a national high school contest fostering students' critical reflections on the role of women in science. The contest, that involved 120 high schools and more than 830 students, was organized in the framework of the H2020 GENERA project (https://genera-project.com/) and it constitutes one of the outcomes of the first Gender in Physics Day (GIPD) event, organized by the Italian National Research Council (CNR) and the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN). The contest required the candidates to create a project about the issue of gender equality in physics with the aim to explore students' perceptions on the prejudices embedded in dominating culture concerning the role of female scientists in society. The contest produced tales, reportage and videos about gender equality and scientific careers. The results support the idea that meaningful knowledge raises when students are actively involved with learning materials. The outcomes show that school contests could be used as educational tools as well as awareness raising activities for high school students with a relevant impact on group learning dynamics and on teachers' active involvement. Preliminary analysis on the videos produced by students show that 1) students were direct performers/actors of their message, 2) interviews were chosen as main information source by students, 3) 1 out of 5 videos cited gender statistics pointing out that students are reached by relevant statistics source on gender, 4) the most interviewed testimonials were female scientists and the least interviewed were the teachers.