For the tenth edition of the Be a scientist project, about 780 students from 33 local school classes conducted investigations to discover the content of mysterious boxes.

Launched in 2011, the project is the result of collaboration between educational institutions on both sides of the Franco-Swiss border: the University of Geneva (Physiscope and Laboratory of Didactics and Science Epistemology), the Department of Public Education (Geneva) and the Ministry of Education (France).

For nearly 4 months, pupils aged 7 to 12 from Geneva, Ain and Haute-Savoie were introduced to the scientific research process in order to identify, as precisely as possible, the content of boxes that they were not allowed to open or damage – just like CERN scientists are looking for particles they can’t see.

Traditionally, the project includes a visit to CERN or to the PhysiScope of the University of Geneva, but this time, given the constraints of the current pandemic, CERN scientists visited the classes instead, either in person or virtually.

This tenth edition ended on a high note with a virtual conference held on Monday, 10 May at the Globe of Science and Innovation at CERN. From their classrooms, the budding scientists were invited to present their results, discuss their research and, above all, to finally discover the content of the boxes!

If you are a teacher interested in participating in a future edition, please visit https://voisins.cern/be-scientist. Registration for the 2022 event will open at the end of the summer!