Students from St John’s College and St John’s Academy (Barnato Park High School in Johannesburg) teamed up to win the European Council for Nuclear Research (CERN) Beamline for Schools Competition 2015.
Accelerating Africa, the winning South African team was a collaboration between boys in grade 11 from both schools.
The name was chosen as the team wanted to demonstrate that by working together, pupils with a passion for science from different backgrounds could be an example of what science education in South Africa can achieve.
Inspired by 2015 being named the International Year of Light by the United Nations, their project involved producing high-energy gamma rays using a crystalline undulator.
“This is an incredible achievement for South Africa, St John’s College, Barnato Park High School and the students involved,” said Ms Colleen Henning, the head of department for science at St John’s College.
“We are extremely grateful to CERN for this opportunity for ourselves and our country. We hope that winning this competition may inspire students all over South Africa to believe in themselves and become the next generation of scientists.”
CERN is best-known for its Large Hadron Collider (LHC). At 27km, it’s the world’s largest particle accelerator and was responsible for finding the Higgs boson.
It runs the Beamline for Schools Competition, which makes a fully equipped Beamline, a beam of accelerated particles along a specific path of an accelerator facility, available for high school students to conduct an experiment in the same way that researchers do at the Large Hadron Collider and other CERN facilities.
In proposals of fewer than 1 000 words, teams had to explain why they wanted to visit CERN, what they hoped to take away from the experience and give initial thoughts on how they would use the particle beam for their experiment.
They also had to summarise their written proposal in a creative and entertaining video.
By January 31, 212 teams from 40 countries had registered their intent to enter.
The competition closed on March 31 with a total of 1 050 high school students from around the world.
Teams of CERN scientists then evaluated proposals based on creativity, motivation, feasibility and scientific method.
After two rounds of evaluation, 13 teams were highly commended and put forward for final selection by an official CERN committee that assigns beam time to experiments.
On June 15 in Geneva, CERN announced that two teams had been selected to travel to CERN in September to carry out their own experiments using a CERN accelerator beam.
The students are currently in Geneva conducting their experiments with top scientists from all over the world.
South Africa’s Accelerating Africa team will be joined in Geneva by the Leo4G team from Liceo Scientifico Leonardo da Vinci School in Florence, Italy.
The costs of the 20 students was sponsored by CERN.
Supplied by St John’s College.
