Topi da laboratorio: performing the science communication through theatre.

Over the past years communication and outreach have become a fundamental concern of state-of-the-art research communities. The relationship between science and society has begun to change radically and communication is now a necessity. The last decade has experienced an increase of concern about the difficulties of reaching the general public with complex scientific concepts. Climate change is now an established scientific fact, however it is an example of a complex issue whose communication is crucial to avoid misunderstandings and to support enhanced climate actions. Several communication strategies have been challenged in the recent years with the goal of sensitising the non-scientific public. Art represents a great potential for the communication of climate change and may contribute to a shift in attitudes. "Topi da laboratorio" (https://www.miela.it/topi-da-laboratorio/), literally "laboratory mice", is an outreach project created by a small group of young researchers and amateur actors, whose main goal is to promote science engaging the general public. The group was born in 2016, after a science communication competition, with a science dissemination objective and the need to fight the "fake information". The dissemination is exploited by developing an ironic style, coupled with involvement of the public and informal theatrical approach. The group has been working at a series of theater shows about science, covering a wide ranges of fields: from the physics of electromagnetism and spectroscopy to the cognitive neurosciences, from the astrophysics to the chemistry and physics at different scales, from matter to atmosphere. The group is now working on a new performance about the climate change issue, with the aim of engaging the local public to the topic and of erasing some common misconceptions surrounding this issue.