CERN Trip

On Friday 27 September, GCSE and A Level Physics students travelled to Geneva, Switzerland, to visit CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Upon arrival, they took a boat trip around Lake Geneva, the largest freshwater lake in Europe, passing close to its 100m-high water fountain, the tallest in Europe.

On Saturday, they toured CERN, visiting the first synchronised particle accelerator (synchrotron), built in 1957. A coach then took them across the 27 km CERN ring into France to see the Atlas detector. In the afternoon, they explored CERN’s newly completed hands-on exhibition, learning about the formation of quarks during the Big Bang, theories on Dark Matter, and the search for new fundamental particles.

Sunday featured a coach trip to Chamonix in the Alps, followed by a train ride from Montenvers to the ice cave in the glacier, offering breathtaking views of the snowcapped mountains. On the final day, after shopping for chocolate in Geneva, students and staff visited the United Nations building and had the rare chance to observe a live UN meeting.

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