Question: why do you want to support international Masterclass programme?

Clara Nellist answered on 12 Mar 2014:

I think the International Masterclass programme is a brilliant way of bringing real research into the classroom and allowing young people to experience what it’s like to be a scientist. This is an event held internationally every March where school students go into a local university and get to be particle physicists for the day.

Unfortunately in some countries, for example Palestine, the school might not have a university nearby with experts that can help to set up the first masterclass, so it’s difficult for them to get started. In this case, a scientist can travel to the school to give a talk on particle physics and guide the students in the research they will do that day. Then they connect to other schools through the internet to compare their results – just like we do at CERN! The trip could also include a virtual visit to the ATLAS control room over the internet so the students can talk to more scientists and find out about the work that they do.

Once the school has held this event, it’s much easier for them to repeat it the next year, allowing more young people to experience real research and hopefully some of them will follow this as a career path.

By the way, any school can do a virtual visit to the ATLAS control room, so I encourage you to send your teacher to this website and ask them to set one up for your class! 🙂
http://atlas-live-virtual-visit.web.cern.ch/atlas-live-virtual-visit/