Netzwerk Teilchenwelt: German high-school students at CERN

Five high-school students from Germany conducted their own research at CERN as part of the Netzwerk Teilchenwelt programme

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Netzwerk Teilchenwelt: German high-school students at CERN

Matteo Kumar, Jan Eckerlein, Tim Hebenstreit, Elisabeth Walter and Sophie Li during their two-week project at CERN. (Image: Susanne Duhrkoop/CERN)

On 15-27 October, the dream of conducting research at CERN came true for five German high-school students thanks to the Netzwerk Teilchenwelt programme.

Netzwerk Teilchenwelt is a collaboration of 29 German research institutes, led by TU Dresden. The project gives both students and teachers the opportunity to learn about cutting-edge physics and to gain first-hand experience of the day-to-day life of particle physics researchers. Each year, roughly 4000 students take part in the project.

Before coming to CERN, the students attended different preparatory programmes, including a masterclass in particle physics. During their two-week project, they worked on their own papers on the research they carried out at CERN. Their topics ranged from the search for supersymmetry (SUSY) to the optimisation of the event selection. Some of the papers will be graded and will serve as part of their school education, while others will be submitted to a competition.