Curricular Design and Epistemic Reconstruction of Physics and STEM Topics from a Interdisciplinary Perspective

National curriculum guidelines are increasingly introducing topics and competences related to artificial intelligence, climate change, relativity, complex systems, and quantum physics across different school levels. In recent decades, scientific and technological revolutions have transformed both the nature of science—how it is produced and validated—and the society in which we live. The rise of generative AI and quantum technologies, outcomes of the Second Quantum Revolution, highlights the need to educate citizens and foster new interdisciplinary and professional skills.

The research group has been designing educational resources to reintegrate the conceptual and cultural relevance of 20th-century physics into school curricula, promoting awareness of AI, sustainability, climate issues, complexity, and quantum technologies. These topics are reconstructed around structural concepts such as space-time, symmetry, discrete versus continuous, classical versus quantum logic, and experimentation versus computation.

This vision has guided the I SEE and IDENTITIES projects. I SEE developed future-oriented STEM modules that combine science and future thinking. IDENTITIES explored interdisciplinary approaches in teacher education, developing a theoretical model to interdisciplinarity to both curricular and STEM topics, that was tested with students and teachers.

Their follow-up, the H2020 project FEDORA, addressed three key gaps between school and society: disciplinary fragmentation, lack of meaningful narratives, and the need for future-oriented thinking. These challenges led to the development of a pedagogical model grounded in interdisciplinarity, new languages, and imaginative thinking for sustainable futures.