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We introduce Ricerca Operativa Applicazioni Reali (ROAR; in English, Real Applications of Operations Research), a three-year project for higher secondary schools. Its main aim is to improve students’ interest, motivation, and skills related to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics disciplines by integrating mathematics and computer science through operations research. ROAR offers examples and problems closely connected with students’ everyday life or with the industrial reality, balancing mathematical modeling and algorithmics. The project is composed of three teaching units, addressed to grades 10, 11, and 12. The implementation of the first teaching unit took place in Spring 2021 at the scientific high school IIS Antonietti in Iseo (Brescia, Italy). In particular, in this paper, we provide a full description of this first teaching unit in terms of objectives, prerequisites, topics and methods, organization of the lectures, and digital technologies used. Moreover, we analyze the feedback received from students and teachers involved in the experimentation, and we discuss advantages and disadvantages related to distance learning that we had to adopt because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Funding: E. Taranto and G. Colajanni were partially supported by the research projects “Programma Ricerca di Ateneo UNICT 2020-22 linea 2,” “EEEP&DLaD,” and “OMNIA” of the University of Catania. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/ited.2022.0271 .

Is the gender gap still a topic in the academic world and in particular in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)? What difficulties did women who pursue a career in academia have to overcome? What are the differences among countries and what has changed compared to the past? As women and members of a community of young researchers in Operations Research (OR), we have tried to find answers to these questions by interviewing a group of prominent female professors and affirmed researchers in STEM belonging to different generations, with dissimilar careers and experiences. We have discussed with them about awareness, leaky pipelines, mobility, mentoring, society, role of education, and more. Their motivating stories and opinions contained in this article have allowed us to extrapolate a portrait of what barriers women encountered in STEM in the past, but also what challenges and stereotypes are still to be overcome, striving to close the gap.

Operations Research (OR) is a branch of applied mathematics usually taught in undergraduate and graduate courses at the university level. Nevertheless, during the last years, various initiatives have been developed to introduce some topics to younger students. These initiatives usually aim to improve students’ interest and motivation towards mathematics and other STEM disciplines. They also allow students to acquire new skills and abilities as well as increase their awareness of a discipline with several applications. In this review, we analyze the state of the art related to Grades 9–12. We present and classify local, national and international OR educational initiatives we were able to collect. Then, we compare their objectives and focus, topics introduced, teaching methods, instruments and software chosen, and feedback received. Finally, we discuss some of the main current international and national guidelines for mathematics education of Grades 9–12, showing how OR could be suitable to fulfil many of these.