12.03.2014

Young people become “particle physicists for a day”

10th anniversary of International Masterclasses

It is a unique opportunity for high school students: within the framework of the International Masterclasses „Hands on Particle Physics“ they can hunt for evidence of particles in authentic data from experiments in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the most powerful particle accelerator in the world, located at CERN, near Geneva. DESY and numerous research institutes around the world open their doors for the 10^th time and invite young people to become particle physicists for one day. This year´s edition of International Masterclasses take place from 12 March to 12 April and will attract about 10 000 participants.

Four myons pass the ATLAS detector after a proton-proton collision (blue tracks). (Picture: ATLAS experiment © 2013 CERN)

The International Masterclasses are organised by the International Particle Physics Outreach Group (IPPOG) since 2005 and their aim is to actively engage young people in current particle physics. DESY takes part in this programme from the beginning and will do so also this year at both institutes: on 21 March in Hamburg and on 24 March in Berlin, together with the HU Berlin university. On 25 March, there will also be held an International Masterclasses training for teachers. More than 1000 participants registered at German research institutes. “I am always amazed of the fact that so many high school students are just as fascinated of particle physics as we scientists are,” beames DESY Director Prof. Joachim Mnich with regard to the excellent participation at the International Masterclasses day.

Especially the recent discovery of the Higgs particle at the LHC made particle physics a very popular research field today. Microcosm, Higgs particle and black holes are no longer themes only for scientists but they also appear in daily newspapers and television where they ultimately attract the interest of pupils. At the Masterclasses, pupils get the opportunity to work with original data from the LHC experiments as much as possible like real scientists. “International Masterclasses are a unique opportunity for young people to work elbow-to-elbow with scientists evaluating original data from the LHC and get a taste of how modern research in physics works,” says Michael Kobel, professor from Technical University Dresden and head of the programme.

Four experiments - ATLAS, CMS, ALICE, and LHCb - have made data available for the programme. For example, pupils will measure the Z boson or investigate the structure of the proton. A highlight is the possibility to trace the rare and short-lived Higgs particle in the ATLAS and CMS data, thus experiencing the discovery of the particle themselves.

200 universities and laboratories in 40 countries participate in the International Masterclasses. After doing research work locally, the young people discuss their measuring results in a video conference with school students from other countries and with CERN or Fermilab near Chicago – just like scientists do in international collaborations.

In some cases, Masterclasses has indeed influenced the life of participants, an example is Sandra Grünewald: At 11^th grade, I took part in the DESY and HumboldtUniversität zu Berlin programme, and since that time I knew that I would study particle physics and perhaps engage in particle physics,” she told us. In fact, she decided to study physics at Humboldt University. For her master’s thesis, she worked at DESY and HU Berlin in the Cherenkov Telescope Array CTA working group. “I think it is very important to convey the fascination of physics to young people,” she said enthusiastically when talking about her work with children and school students at the DESY school lab in Zeuthen.

The Masterclasses take place in collaboration with Netzwerk Teilchenwelt, a German network to facilitate particle physics to young people and teachers. International Masterclasses are led by Technical University in Dresden and organized by IPPOG, the International Particle Physics Outreach Group, with representatives from countries doing research at CERN, and from CERN and DESY, with the goal to make particle physics more accessible to the public.

Homepage of International Masterclasses

Discussion of the results in a video conference with other participants and CERN physicists.