Review
2000, Students'
view 1,
Students' view 2, Teacher's
View, Tutor's
View
The 1997 event
Particles and Pupils - Masterclasses 2000
Andrew Morrison, PPARC Schools Liaison Officer for Particle Physics (to appear in Physics World)
March and April this year saw more than 2000 Sixth Formers and their teachers wrestling with the concepts of matter, antimatter, quarks, leptons, gluons and the basic building blocks of the universe. They were attending the Particle Physics Masterclasses organised by the High Energy Particle Physics Group of the Institute of Physics. Now in their fourth year, these are held in 16 universities and laboratories across the country and have proved extremely popular - with many centres rapidly putting up the "House Full"sign.
Val Gibson, of the Cavendish Laboratory in
Cambridge co-ordinated this year's classes. She explains that
they "give sixth formers and their teachers a chance to
experience some of the excitement felt by those of us lucky
enough to work in the field". Students also had the
opportunity to meet and question a range of researchers in
particle physics - sometimes asking some pretty tough questions!
The different events all had their own flavour, but one theme for
this year was the Higgs boson which is thought to be responsible
for mass, and the BaBar experiment which investigates the subtle
differences between matter and antimatter thereby providing some
insight into why we live in a matter-dominated Universe. The
students divided their time between talks by research workers,
analysing collision data from the Large Electron Positron
Collider (LEP) at CERN and touring the research groups. Teachers
attending the Masterclasses found that they captured the interest
of their students. As one teacher said it was simply a
"great day - one of the best".
Andrew Morrison, PPARC Schools Liaison Officer for Particle Physics
Data:
Feedback from Participants:
No centre reported anything other than positive feedback - the clear message is that teachers valued the events and they report that their students also enjoyed them. Some specific comments from organisers:
Some comments from teachers:
Two schools (and probably more might think the same) commented
that the timing was too early for year 12 students (first year of
A-level) and too late for year 13 students.
Feedback on central organisation:
There was no common theme - although getting materials from PPARC (the research council) seemed to present some problems. Positive suggestions included a central time-line to act as a reminder to centres, circulation of "what worked", and trying to come up with material which specifically links to the main focus of the masterclass (e.g. Babar cubes and software last year). No significant local publicity reported.
The Students' View - Rutherford Appleton Lab, 2000
Sayeedul Ahmed and James Hum, Year 12 students, St John's College, Southsea
As GCSE students last year, we were encouraged to join our school group on the annual trip to CERN. Not surprisingly, we felt overwhelmed by the sheer size of the CERN site and seeing the LEP tunnel and the ALEPH detectors left a lasting impression on our minds. At the time we were in the middle of our GCSE Physics course so we were just being introduced to aspects of modern physics. There is no doubt that our visit to Geneva gave us a real desire to learn more about the theory behind the experiments. As a result, when we were invited to attend the Masterclass at Rutherford-Appleton Laboratories, we did not hesitate to accept the chance to find out as much as we could about particle physics.
Once we arrived at the reception area, we enjoyed a break for refreshments before being introduced to the activities for the day by Professor Frank Close who face we knew from his Christmas lectures on television. Our school will always fondly remember the first talk by Dr Herbi Dreiner as the "Apple Sauce" lecture that formed an amusing and easy introduction to the subject of particle physics.
Later, when the time came for us to use the computer programs we were eager to try out our new knowledge as we attempted to identify particles from their tracks. This task was not as easy as it first looked but luckily we were given help whenever we needed it from scientists who explained each process step by step. We gained confidence and speed, as we soon knew what to do. We continued though our list and tackled the calculations at the end when the values from all the groups were collected and we were relieved to find out that they were shown to be statistically consistent with the expected results. We felt we gained considerable insight into the problems faced by researchers when handling raw data, even with the support of information technology to remove as many confusing background signals as possible.
During a very welcome buffet lunch in the exhibition area, we looked at the displays around the room and talked with other students about the morning events. After a lecture by Dr Stefania Spagnolo on the standard model of particle physics, we were given a guided tour of the ISIS accelerator. Our initial impression of the size of the accelerator was that it was miniscule compared to the LEP tunnel but as each experiment was described to us, we become increasingly aware of the great variety of practical applications that are developed at the Rutherford-Appleton Laboratories. As at CERN, we realised just how many Physics experiments depend on international teams working in cooperation.
The day finished all too soon with a very exciting lecture given by Dr Neil Geddes on the BaBar experiment, which is hoping to produce evidence to help solve the antimatter mystery. Dr Geddes' explanations triggered a lot of discussion by our group as we thought about the questions raised in the lecture. Overall, we look back on a day that introduced physics research in a way that we were able to understand and develop in the future as we continue our physics studies. Other students are now eagerly waiting the date of our next school trip to CERN when we will be able to show off our new knowledge into context.
We are very grateful to the organisers of the Masterclass and
would strongly recommend A-level Physics students to participate
if they possibly can (it helps a lot, believe us!)
A Teacher's View - Oxford, April 1999
Adam Easton, Head of Physics St. Augustine's School, Oxford.
When I received the letter inviting sixth-formers from St. Augustine's School to attend the Oxford University Particle Physics Masterclass I leapt at the chance. I had attended the masterclass the previous year with my Year 12 class and and had received very positive feedback from them. Atomic structure and basic particle physics form part of our A-level course at St. Augustine's, so the chance to attend a specialist one day course is an opportunity not to be missed.
The day consisted of several activities. A series of
interesting talks by lecturers and research students on topics
such as the history of particle physics, particle detection
systems and the latest research from accelerators around the
world. Students were also given the chance to use the latest
software to determine and analyse particles from the tracks they
leave in detectors. There was also the chance to explore the
topics of particle physics and antimatter on the Web. The
feedback from students was again very positive and suggested that
they had found the day interesting and enjoyable and that it had
provided a valuable insight into University life. If you get the
chance to attend the masterclass I would certainly recommend it.
The Students' View - Oxford, April 1999
Peter Hastings, Gosford Hill School, Kidlington, Oxford, summaries the experiences of his class; for more reviews in different years, see their web page
Particle physics is an interesting and
stimulating area of physics that hopes to explain phenomena by
understanding the building blocks of everything we can or cannot
see around us. The masterclass gave us the opportunity to learn
more about a subject that is only just beginning to be understood
by physicists. It also gave us an opportunity to ask questions at
people who are working on experiments that are happening now (May
9th 1999), which could seriously effect the way we understand how
things exist. Therefore I think that this masterclass was very
beneficial and informative to all of us that went on it.
A Tutor's View - University College London, April 1999
Dr. Mark Hayes, University College London HEP group
"A resounding success" seems an appropriate phrase for the IOP masterclass held at UCL in April. It showed that even the infamous three minute MTV attention span of teenagers can still be held by greater ideas which require time to digest. Why are there exactly three families of quarks? What does the structure of a fundamental particle (the photon) actually mean?
Firstly how do you accelerate fundamental particles of matter to near light velocities? The tours of the working labs, in the process of designing new high speed electronics, demonstrated not all physics was melting ice in a bucket. The many tours with small groups meant that the embarrassment factors of asking questions was greatly reduced.
If I had to choose a weak point I would have to mention the computer software. With the advent of multi-million polygonal mapping 3D arcade games, some of the software looked a bit ragged. It didn't look like cutting edge technology, although it was describing it. Also although the official CERN software was in four languages there were spelling mistakes in at least one of them. It distracted from the content.
Finally let me return to the talks which addressed the questions mentioned in the first paragraph. I felt as though there was a genuine interest in the audience about the current research topics which were presented. However it required a planted question from a colleague to loosen up the audience and get over the peer fear of embarrassment. More importantly it taught me not to underestimate the intelligence, curiosity or simply the alertness of the students. One adept lady picked up a phrase in a talk and asked "What is a mass eigenstate?". Now how would you answer that question from this proto-researcher?
* The National Particle Physics Masterclasses are organised by the High Energy Particle Physics Group of the Institute of Physics throughout the UK