The Discovery of the Higgs Boson – A Step Closer to the Big Bang
With the recent discovery of a Higgs boson at the LHC and the inroads made in the understanding of dark matter and dark energy - 2013 is a great year to discuss the connection of astronomy, cosmology, particle physics and accelerators with A-level pupils.
The University of Oxford is organising in collaboration with CERN a one-day school to give A-level teachers an opportunity to learn about the phenomena and scientific challenges which connect astronomy, cosmology, particle physics and the physics of particle accelerators. This school is designed for physics teachers who are not necessarily physics specialists.
Participating teachers will have the opportunity this year to learn more about the acceleration due to Earth’s gravitational field, called ‘g’, and connections between astronomy, cosmology and particle physics. The school will address questions such as "What is the origin of the Universe and of matter?" "What are the fundamental particles and forces?”, "How do the LHC or other particle accelerators work?" "How are the LHC experiments connected to astronomy?" and "What are the applications of particle accelerators in our daily lives?"
The participating teachers will measure g in the laboratory at the University of Oxford. We aim to eventually generate a map of the local variations of the acceleration due to gravity around the UK. This experiment will involve pupils around the country in what could become a very large (in terms of number of participants) physics experiment. By combining all of the data (acceleration and location), we could build one of the most accurate maps of UK’s gravitational field yet made.
Past APPEAL events (APPEAL-1, APPEAL-2 and APPEAL-3) were very successful and we are looking forward to a very interesting and thought-provoking event this year as well.
The APPEAL-4 event will take place on Saturday, 15 June 2013 at the University of Oxford.
To take part in this school please register before the 25 May 2013.
There are no registration fees for the teachers to participate in the event. The organisers are grateful for the support received from the following organisations:
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