Masterclass at CERN Despina Hatzifotiadou 26th EPPOG Meeting 16 April 2010 Oslo

The CERN Masterclass

When Wednesday 3rd CERN 2010

Participants71 pupils from the Lycée International de Ferney-Voltaire (France)Accompanied by 2 physics teachers and 2 other adultsPremière scientifique + seconde internationale (english, spanish, dutch,..)No terminale (they have too heavy a workload for the Baccalaureat)

OrganisationCorinne Pralavorio (+ Marie Bugnon) from CERNPart of various initiatives of the local communications group, involving the French andSwiss communities in the vicinity of CERN(Another example : Dessine-moi un physicien, involving elementary school children)

Help fromCERN visits service (for the visits)Many physicists (for the lectures and the exercise)

Masterclass at CERN Despina Hatzifotiadou 26th EPPOG Meeting 16 April 2010 Oslo

Programme of the day

Morning Standard (short) CERN visit including• Presentation of CERN and what it does• Visit of one of the following sites:

• ATLAS visitors centre• PS, LEIR and LINAC 2• CAST experiment and LHCB surface exhibition (P8)

Lectures on• Particle Physics • Detectors

Lunch

Afternoon14:00 - 16:00 Z0 exercise (Identifying particles, OPAL data)16:30 - 17:30 video conference with other institutes (Poland, US, Portugal)

Masterclass at CERN Despina Hatzifotiadou 26th EPPOG Meeting 16 April 2010 Oslo

The Zº exerciseThe pupils were placed in 4 rooms with PCs in the CERN training centre (bldg 572)They worked in groups of 2 and analysed 100 events per groupTwo physicists in each room to help

First : introduction (powerpoint) on particle identification, OPAL etc

The video conference

In the CERN IT Auditorium (bldg 31 - 3 - 004)Moderators were somewhere in the same building (?)We were connected with• University of California, Riverside (US)• Faro (Portugal)• Lodz (Poland)

Masterclass at CERN Despina Hatzifotiadou 26th EPPOG Meeting 16 April 2010 Oslo

The video conference

Masterclass at CERN Despina Hatzifotiadou 26th EPPOG Meeting 16 April 2010 Oslo

Debriefing with teacher • General appreciation (teachers and pupils) positive.

• The day was too long; lunch pause was too short

• The visits were very different - depends on the guide• (some were too technical; others explained well; maybe language problem)

• The lectures : various comments (some overlap)• Enjoyed hearing about superstrings (level should not be kept too low)• Not much on detectors (e.g. very little on electron identification)

• Exercise was interesting ; they saw it as a sort of game• No connection between the visit and the exercise

• Discussion of results : not uniform - more work on this needed

• Video conference : not interesting (left too much time for general questions)• Could not see well who was talking• Too long• The quizz was good • The pupils had to catch a bus back at 17:30 ; the answers of the quizz were given by the local• organiser

Masterclass at CERN Despina Hatzifotiadou 26th EPPOG Meeting 16 April 2010 Oslo

Some more comments

The OPAL exercise : very well structured (step by step, examples, training etc)Overall method of input of results : very efficient

CERN training centre : ideal, provided available Abundance of physicists around

Teachers : very enthusiastic response; declared ready to participate in future activities

Testbench for future (LHC) masterclass exercises..