On Friday 20th January, a group of twenty Year 12 and Year 13 pupils accompanied by three members of staff travelled to Geneva, Switzerland on a trip organised by the Physics department in order to visit the research facilities at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire, CERN).
The visit to CERN took place on 21st January where, after a short introduction to particle accelerators and the research that takes place there, our tour guide walked us through two research sites; the Antimatter Factory where researchers study if antimatter behaves the same way as ordinary matter and the Data Centre, where we found out how the insurmountable amount of data produced by CERN is filtered, stored, and then distributed to researchers. Our pupils asked a plethora of probing questions demonstrating their prior knowledge in Particle Physics and their genuine interest; in our tour guide’s own words, we were ‘quite the group’!
We did not, however, miss out on the opportunity to explore more than the wonders of Physics taking place in Geneva. On Sunday 22nd January, we went on a guided tour of the city, visiting iconic locations such as the Alley of Flags and the Broken Chair, the La Grange Park, and St Peter’s Cathedral, all while learning about the city’s history.
On this first international St Lawrence College trip since the COVID pandemic, our pupils gained an insight on the research to uncover what the universe is made of and how it works, and thoroughly enjoyed themselves outside the school setting.
