Researcher for the night

22 September 2010

Inviting local school children to come to CERN


To have the opportunity to sit side by side with scientists and operators in the LHC control rooms – this adventure might become reality for some 150 young students in the age of 12 to 18 years from local schools in France and Geneva during the European Researchers Night on September 24th.

'The European Researchers' Night' or 'Nuit européenne des chercheurs' is part of 'the Week of Science and European Researchers' Night' in Frascati in Italy taking place from September 18th to 26th 2010. The event is organised in the framework of the EU-funded BEST (Being a European Scientist Today) project, whose other partners are the Frascati Scienza association in Italy – which is also co-ordinating the project – the Erasmus Medical Centre in the Netherlands and EFDA-JET Institute Institute in the UK.

The first science week took place 10 years ago in Frascati to give everyone the opportunity to visit the different laboratories all around the area of Frascati, which is situated near Rome. This is where most of the institutes are based, like INAF (National Institute for Astrophysics), INFN (National Institute for Nuclear Physics), University of Rome and others. Ever since, Frascati has been hosting a science week every year in September that also combines the visits of the labs with exhibitions, a science theatre and café – all in an entertaining spirit –with a European funding for the last five years. In 2009 Paola Catapano was asked to host the web conference in Frascati on the public square, and of course she talked about CERN and the LHC being built. “CERN scientists already took part in last year's event, but only through a web connection with Frascati,” explains Paola Catapano, who is member of the CERN Communication group and organiser of the activities taking place here. “This year it's the first time we are participating in the event by opening the doors of the LHC control rooms and producing an eight-hour web cast.”

Thanks to live-streaming, the webcast will be seen at the same time in Frascati and in a Pathé movie-theatre in Rotterdam – thanks to the Tandberg video conferencing system. It will feature video connections with the other experiments' and LHC control rooms, and several scientific sites around the world, like the Ice Cube experiment at the South Pole Station in Antarctica searching for cosmic neutrinos, The European Gravitational Observatory (EGO), which takes care of the scientific exploitation of the VIRGO interferometric antenna for gravitational waves detection, as well as two Nobel prize winners: George Smoot, from the Paris Observatory, will explain to the public his observations of the cosmic radiation coming from the Big bang, and Sam Ting, from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, where the AMS experiment (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer) put together at CERN, is soon to be launched on board of the space shuttle Discovery to join the International Space station. “For this plan, our partners come from different scientific domains, what proves to be very positive. Thanks to broadcasting on the web, we are going to show that science is deeply multidisciplinary, international and advantageous for the collaboration,” adds Paola.

Everyone can follow the web cast on the Internet, but to follow it live in the Globe where 100 places per section of the webcast are available – you just have to register online (From the same site, it will be possible to follow the direct webcast, which will be broadcast in French from 17:00 to 22:00 and in English from 22:00 until 1:00. The second main activity organised at CERN is specially meant for the local young public, who are invited to apply to experience the excitement of working together with scientists and operators in the control rooms. “We have sent all local schools in the Geneva area in France and Switzerland the invitation to participate in the initiative”, explains Paola Catapano. About 150 students will be selected to spend a couple of hours in the control rooms of the ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, LHCb and TOTEM experiments or the CERN Control Centre (CCC) and participate in the activities organised for them, which researchers will be directly involved in. “Students are already applying through a web questionnaire. Applications are increasing day by day, as we started the publicity even though the school just started a week ago.” says Paola.

Some students know exactly what they want, like Clothilde, a 15 year-old: “I want to participate in this activity by curiosity and by desire to learn. I always have been attracted by everything that is physics and chemistry. I find that it is a very good occasion to know more about it and to discover CERN. The control rooms of ALICE and ATLAS are more interesting to me than others, because I am interested in particular to learn more about the matter in the first moments of the Universe and the Higgs boson.”

“I am motivated because I am interested in the job of my daddy I would not like to miss this chance. I would like to know more about the creation of the world and about life. I am interested a lot in physics and I work on it at school, I feel like visiting ATLAS because I have been there already (at the open house) and wanted to know more about it,” said Marie, age 12.

Estelle, another 12 year-old, is just as enthusiastic: “What most enthrals me in CERN, is the project to learn more about the origins of the world. I would really like to see the control room of ATLAS which is in front of CERN because I saw a documentary and it seems to be really huge and complex!!”

The students will be split into groups of five and after having followed a little training of 45 minutes, they will participate for two hours in a shift and have a live experience of the work of a physicist on shift. At the same time students in Frascati will have their activities, doing some experiments. In a phone conference the students will be able to talk to each other and exchange on their experiences.

The Globe Show is very varied, showing all the different aspects of physics: from playing with science to latest news from the laboratories with an open-heart surgery accomplished in Rotterdam on live broadcast, a quiz show with CERN physicists as referees, information about the practical applications of particle physics to Astrophysics and Cosmology.

The Globe show will end with a bet - a ‘Cosmo-bet’. “It was an idea from Steve Goldfarb, who is the host of the ATLAS experiment, who had a lot of brilliant ideas,” smiles Paola. The bet is to tell, which experiment or lab will be the first, to find dark matter -LHC or maybe IceCube or a space shuttle. The best justification of the bet will win a trip to the chosen experiment. “Whenever the dark matter will be discovered, in 10 years may be, the winner will be invited once more. In case it is found by a space shuttle, it will be an invitation to their control room.”



Birgit Ewert

ATLAS e-News