On Thursday, 10 November 2022, as part of the Futur en tous genres event, CERN welcomed 24 children from Swiss schools for a day of discovery.

Futur en tous genres is an annual event organised by the Swiss Department of Public Education, Training and Youth (DIP). Young people are invited to spend a day discovering the wide range of jobs and fields in which their gender is underrepresented. The goal is to help them to break free of prejudices and to open their eyes to futures they may not have considered, encouraging them to pursue their own ambitions with confidence.

This year, 24 children aged 12 and 13 spent the day with CERN scientists, who told them about their jobs and answered their questions. The programme included a visit to the cryogenics laboratory, a radiation protection workshop, conversations with science communication experts and an introduction to jobs in civil engineering and superconductivity. The jam-packed day certainly sparked the children’s interest, and may even have set some of them on a course to their future careers!