A Food Education Pathway within the DIFFERS Project: Differently Sweet in the Anthropocene. Tomorrow, 28 January, the University of Milano-Bicocca will welcome more than one hundred students from the second-year classes of the Giovanni XXIII Institute of Nova Milanese as part of the DIFFERS project – Differently Sweet in the Anthropocene. The initiative represents a scientific outreach experience aimed at bringing young people closer to the university environment and fostering dialogue between University and School, with the goal of promoting food awareness, critical thinking and scientific citizenship from an early age. The common thread of the programme will be sugar, explored through a multidisciplinary lecture addressing several key themes: from the history of sugar and its consumption patterns, to its nutritional value and the risks associated with excessive intake, concluding with a focus on the role of sugar in sports.

The project also includes a bread-making workshop involving both students and their grandparents, centred on a recipe made with sourdough and fruit as the sole sweetening agent. The dough, prepared at school, will later be baked and consumed at home, with the aim of encouraging a process of knowledge dissemination within families. The initiative will continue with an outdoor education session, during which students will listen to a testimonial dedicated to a historical sugar factory and to the past processes of sugar extraction from sugar beet.

Professor Ierardi, research consultant and secondary school teacher, serves as Coordinator for Food Education. The DIFFERS project – Differently Sweet in the Anthropocene, proposed by Professor Prosperi of the University of Milano-Bicocca, is part of the ONFOODS Extended Partnership, funded by the European Union under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). The project has included an experimental collaboration with Barilla and the realization of the exhibition “Sugar: A Biography of the World”.