At the end of last month, 11 students from CIC’s science department travelled to Switzerland to visit CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research and home to the Large Hadron Collider. The students were accompanied by two of the department’s science teachers, Mr Tom Gray and Dr Daliya George.
Presentation and tour of CERN
During their visit, students were fortunate enough to be given a presentation by a scientist working at CERN about its history. Students found it very inspiring to discover how CERN was helping to answer some of the world’s most fundamental questions: how did the Universe begin? What are the basic building blocks of matter? Scientific breakthroughs, such as the discovery of the Higgs boson, require large scale experimental machines, and students gained an appreciation of the technical and engineering challenges that the multinational experimental collaborations at CERN face.
The presentation was followed by a tour of the facility, with the highlight being a visit to the ATLAS detector and seeing scientists at work in the mission control room. The scale of the science and technology at CERN was awe-inspiring. There is no doubt that seeing it first hand and meeting the people who carry out the experiments will have a great influence on our students’ future education and career choices.
Seeing the sites in Geneva
Aside from intellectual enlightenment, students had a full day of sight-seeing in the scenic city of Geneva, surrounded by the Alps and Jura Mountains. The boat ride in Lake Geneva and visiting the Geneva fountain were great fun. For lunch, students enjoyed trying a traditional Swiss cheese fondue. Both students and teachers alike had a great time and are looking forward to another trip again next year!