Aylsham High School students to hunt for the Higgs boson at CERN

Students from Aylsham High School have been inspired to plan a visit to CERN, home of the Large Hadron Collider.

During the trip next month, the students plan to discover how CERN is helping to answer some of the 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 experimental machines on the large scale, and the students will gain an appreciation of the technical and engineering challenges that the multinational experimental collaborations at CERN face.

The purpose of the trip is not only linked directly to topic 4 of the extension physics course (P3) but we also hope to also inspire the students to think about studying physics beyond GCSE while enjoying the opportunity to experience French speaking Geneva and the surrounding area.

The students have worked hard to raise money for their visit and would like to thank Lovewell Blake of Aylsham and 'the Friends' of Aylsham High for financially supporting them.

They would also like to thank 'Tesco Aylsham' for letting them do a 'bag pack' just before Christmas to raise money for the visit and for Marie Curie Cancer Research. Without the donations of the visiting shoppers on this day and the other above-mentioned contributions, the trip would not have been able to go ahead.

The students are looking forward to updating the Aylsham community on their return.