“Io dico l’universo” (Parlare a scuola dell’evoluzione stellare)

The following contribution to the last AIF’s Congress outlines a concise didactic excursus on stellar evolution suitable for secondary school students. The proposal, following Galileo’s suggestion about the “book of the Universe”, invites to get the relevance of the study about the origins and of an evolutive process resulting in our very existence. After a brief historical premise, the ordinary phases of stellar evolution are outlined up to the nucleosynthesis of the heaviest elements.