Dawson team reunites to use their CERN particle physics kit prize
In early November, there was a reunion of the 2021-’22 Dawson High Energy Particle (HEP) Physics Group. The occasion was receiving (and experimenting with) their prize pack from CERN’s Annual Beamline 4 Schools Competition.
Among the 304 teams from around the world, the Dawson team was shortlisted, which earned them a particle physics kit (cosmic ray detector, or alpha particle spectrometer and cloud chamber) to mount and create demos for students.
Physics teacher Manuel Toharia said that CERN “requires students to work as a team and do research in a less constrained environment. I asked the students to write their proposal for the competition in the scientific format using a specific editing tool called Latex. We were among the best 24 proposals!”
Dawson has participated five times and has been shortlisted twice, Manuel reported.
Particle physics activities take place on Friday afternoons and are organized by Manuel and Joel Trudeau. Students who are enrolled in the SPACE certificate receive credit for their involvement. This semester, attendance was much greater than previous years perhaps because of the buzz around being shortlisted by CERN. Next year, they plan to enter more than one proposal.
The 2022 CERN Beamline for Schools competition team proposal student authors were: Christopher Boa, Beatrice Champagne, Benjamin Coull-Neveu, Marianne Gounelle, Valeria Paula Mosso Tsedilkina, Joshua Onichino, Natalie Oosterman, and Patrick Shaw.
The proposal and a video about their shortlisted project in an article written by the students can be found here: https://space.dawsoncollege.qc.ca/projects/summary/cernbl4s_2022
