After reading the notes left by Pippa Wells and Sabrina Schadegg, the first team to take up the Schools Challenge, it is the turn of Katy Foraz (head of the Engineering department) and Andre Henriques (mechanical engineer from the HSE unit) to conduct investigations in the CERN SM18 hall. 

In June 2021, as the Be a Scientist project celebrates its 10th anniversary, pupils from Jean de la Fontaine school (Prévessin-Moëns, France) and Cérésole school (Petit-Lancy, Switzerland) have hidden various objects in two boxes and set a challenge for CERN scientists to find out what’s inside in just a few months!

Historically, since 2011, the project has been introducing schoolchildren and teachers to the scientific research process. The young researchers make hypotheses, collect data and use evidence as they set out to identify the contents of mysterious boxes without opening or damaging them. This year, the tables have been turned.

Equipped with scales, magnets and a powerful light, Katy and Andre carried out various experiments. They even tried to cheat with an endoscope! Fortunately, the students are smarter and thought to seal the boxes!
Are they on the right track? What do Mar Capeans and Tapan Nayak think? To be continued in the next episode of the Schools Challenge!

Visit the voisins.cern website for regular updates on the challenge and to read more about the progress of the investigations being conducted by the CERN community.