Students inspired into careers in science by Particle Physics Masterclasses

Seventy percent of students attending this year’s Particle Physics Masterclasses at the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) in Oxfordshire have said they would consider a career in science after being inspired by the activities.

Dr Antonis Papanestis with some of this year's students

This year’s classes saw five hundred 16-18 year olds travel to RAL from all over the South East to take part in the sessions over the three days the events were held (11th-13th March). They’re designed to give an insight into Particle Physics and inspire students to take up a career in the sciences.

Independent projections suggest there could be as many as 2.9 million jobs in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine) related jobs by 2017 - the government’s recently launched [So What? So Everything] campaign will further complement work like the Particle Physics Masterclasses to try and increase the number of people studying STEM subjects and entering related careers.

The sessions at RAL last week included interactive workshops, where students worked with data simulated for the large particle collider experiments at CERN (the European Particle Physics Laboratory, based in Geneva). Through this, they had an insight into how experiments will work when the Large Hadron Collider (the world’s most powerful particle accelerator) re-starts in September. They also had lectures from physics experts and tours of some of the STFC’s key facilities including ISIS (the world-leading neutron and muon source) and Diamond (a giant electron synchrotron the size of five football pitches).

Dr Glenn Patrick of STFC’s Particle Physics Department said; "It was good to see so many students from schools all over southern England coming to RAL to hear about our research. The initial feedback shows that these events can make a real difference, with over 70% indicating they would be considering a science/engineering career".

Images available - please contact the press office for more details.

Contacts

• Lucy Stone
  Press Officer
  STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
  Tel: +44 (0)1235 445 627

Further Information

The National Particle Physics Masterclass (link opens in a new window) is a popular series of one day events for sixth form students and their teachers, run by practicing particle physics researchers at various institutes all over the country and co-ordinated through the Institute of Physics.

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