Abstract:

International Particle Physics Masterclasses is an event organised annually by universities and research centres around the globe which are active in particle physics research. Interested high school students come to a nearby university to spend one day with researchers in order to get insight in topics and methods of basic research of matter and forces. The central part of the Masterclasses is the hands-on activity, in which the students analyse real data measured by one of the main CERN experiments. At the end of the day, the participants from different countries join in a video conference to discuss and combine their results.

We report about this year’s organisation of the Masterclasses in Slovakia, which were held as one online event for registered participants from the whole country, instead of events organised by local universities. This allowed optimal use of manpower and resources provided by four universities for the organisation. Modes of the event organisation were adapted to an online form, with reorganised time schedule and added instructions for the activities. We also report about the feedback obtained after the event from the participants.

Keywords:

International Masterclasses, high school students, particle physics, informal science education, hands-on activity.