PHYSICS
Students at STFC labs join 6000 across the world for particle physics classes
A-level students visiting the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s Cheshire and Oxfordshire laboratories next week (15-19 March 2010) will join nearly 6000 other students from 23 countries across the world taking part in annual Particle Physics Masterclasses this month.
The events, which originated in the UK, now take place at the same time of year in countries from all over the world including the US, South Africa and Brazil. They are designed to inspire students to go on to take up careers in science and technology.
The first of the two events take place at STFC’s Daresbury Laboratory in Cheshire on 15 and 16 March. Students from schools around the area, will be given talks and practical demonstrations and challenges related to particle accelerators, including a hands-on experiment to measure energy in ALICE, an R&D prototype for the next generation of accelerator based light sources.
The second set of events being hosted by STFC take place at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) in Oxfordshire on 17, 18, 19 March. At the RAL sessions, the students will be able to work with data simulated for experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (the world’s most powerful particle accelerator), at CERN. There will also be lectures from physics experts and tours of some of the key facilities at RAL, including Diamond Light Source and ISIS.
A student from a school in Buckinghamshire who attended one of the RAL classes last year said; “I enjoyed the tour because it put the theory from classes into practice. We have studied ISIS quite extensively, so it was good to see it for real.”
Dr Lee Jones, an accelerator physicist from Daresbury Laboratory, said “Some of the concepts of physics can be difficult for teachers to deliver and for students to grasp, but it’s also one of the most exciting subjects to teach. There’s worldwide excitement about the discoveries that may be made at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN for example, which may challenge what we think we know about the nature of matter. Hopefully the students we inspire through the Masterclasses can rise to meet these challenges, and who can tell where that journey might lead them?”
Other UK Particle Physics Masterclasses are taking place at University of Bristol, University of Manchester, Queen Mary, University of London and University College London.
The events, which originated in the UK, now take place at the same time of year in countries from all over the world including the US, South Africa and Brazil. They are designed to inspire students to go on to take up careers in science and technology.
The first of the two events take place at STFC’s Daresbury Laboratory in Cheshire on 15 and 16 March. Students from schools around the area, will be given talks and practical demonstrations and challenges related to particle accelerators, including a hands-on experiment to measure energy in ALICE, an R&D prototype for the next generation of accelerator based light sources.
The second set of events being hosted by STFC take place at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) in Oxfordshire on 17, 18, 19 March. At the RAL sessions, the students will be able to work with data simulated for experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (the world’s most powerful particle accelerator), at CERN. There will also be lectures from physics experts and tours of some of the key facilities at RAL, including Diamond Light Source and ISIS.
A student from a school in Buckinghamshire who attended one of the RAL classes last year said; “I enjoyed the tour because it put the theory from classes into practice. We have studied ISIS quite extensively, so it was good to see it for real.”
Dr Lee Jones, an accelerator physicist from Daresbury Laboratory, said “Some of the concepts of physics can be difficult for teachers to deliver and for students to grasp, but it’s also one of the most exciting subjects to teach. There’s worldwide excitement about the discoveries that may be made at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN for example, which may challenge what we think we know about the nature of matter. Hopefully the students we inspire through the Masterclasses can rise to meet these challenges, and who can tell where that journey might lead them?”
Other UK Particle Physics Masterclasses are taking place at University of Bristol, University of Manchester, Queen Mary, University of London and University College London.
How to resolve AdBlock issue?