1. An exciting Opportunity to…. Enhance your A Level studies Develop Key Communication Skills Make personal links with Research staff at a leading University Win money to help finance a trip to CERN New National competition for 2007-8 a Cascade of Particle Physics in schools & colleges STFC CERN accelerator control room What is involved? Groups of A Level students are invited, with support from their teachers and particle physicists at Birmingham, to prepare a short presentation relating to particle physics, and then deliver it to another group of students, either at their own school or college, or to an invited audience from other institutions. The presentations will then be judged by a team from the University – Particle Physics experts and teachers – and the best six schools will be invited to a GRAND FINAL at the University – provisionally scheduled for April 24 th 2008 - where they will repeat their presentations in front of an invited audience, the team of judges and other competitors. TWO major cash prizes of £1000 and FOUR minor cash prizes of £500 will be awarded on the day, to be used to help finance visits to CERN in 2008-9. Please see enclosed information sheet for details of competition rules and procedures. IF YOUR SCHOOL IS INTERESTED IN TAKING PART, PLEASE RETURN THE ENCLOSED FORM ASAP!!

2. Concorde (15 Km) Mt. Blanc (4.8 Km) In 2008, it is expected that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the World’s most powerful particle accelerator, will be running experiments at CERN in Geneva. The biggest detectors ever built will be investigating the origin of mass and studying the fundamental particles that were present at the beginning of the Universe…….. The experiments bring together thousands of scientists from dozens of countries - including the Particle Physics group at the University of Birmingham. A world-wide computing Grid will be used to sort and analyse the vast amount of data collected in the experiments - selecting interesting events will be like looking for 1 person in a thousand World populations – one year’s data from the LHC would fill a stack of CDs 20km high! Possible ATLAS event ALICE Detector Particle Physics - What do we already know? What will be discovered next?? LHC Tunnel

3. Competition information & rules There must be at least two students in the competing team, but there can be more (AS or A2 students or mixed AS & A2 students), and each team member must make a recognisable contribution to the presentation. The presentation must last 20 (+/- 2) minutes, including any demonstrations and/or audience participation. The presentation must include a Power point element and can also include demonstrations, audience participation, drama etc as you think fit! We would expect your audience to be at least 50 students. You will need to send in - a CD with copies of your Power point presentation - details of the audience – ages, schools, colleges etc - details of any demonstrations etc used and we would recommend that you also send in - a CD/DVD/videotape recording of your presentation too on or before March 14 th 2008

4. Your audience can be either - A Level students / Y11 students or - Pre GCSE students (Y7-9) Your presentation should be on one of the following topics: - What are we all made of ? Atoms – Quarks - ? - Particle Accelerators – How do they work? and what happens when particles collide? - Particle Detectors – What are they? How do they detect particles? - World Wide Web to World Wide computing Grid – How far has computing come? And why do we need so many computers? - Searching for New Particles – What are Higgs Bosons? Why may they be important? - Medical Applications of Particle Accelerators – What are they? - Recreating the Early Universe at the LHC - What do we mean? How do we do it? And what are we looking for?

5. Judging Criteria All presentations will be judged on hitting the correct level for the audience involved and on the enthusiasm & effectiveness of the presenting team For A Level/Y11 audience - Knowledge of the subject matter and evidence of research outside A Level syllabus (40%) -Quality of presentation –audible/good audience rapport/variations to hold interest (20%) - Quality of presentation – well prepared PP/good & relevant pictures and/or animations. (20%) -Good & relevant demos/analogies/audience participation to clarify ideas (10%) - Originality (10%) For Pre GCSE (Y7-Y9) audience - Knowledge of the subject matter and ability to make it accessible to the audience involved (30%) - Quality of presentation – audible/entertaining and capturing audience interest (20%) - Quality of presentation – well prepared PP/good & relevant pictures and/or animations. (20%) - Good and relevant demos/analogies/audience participation to clarify ideas (20%) - Originality (10%)