We woke up early, so we had time to pack before heading off to CERN for our tour. We started with a lecture from one of the scientists working at CERN who tried to explain to us what the physicists were trying to do a lot CERN. It was a lot of information to take in and after 2 long and active days some students did find it difficult to follow. We were then taken to one of the experiment sites and learnt how the Large Hadron Collider works. We saw one of the huge 15m long magnets from the collider and found out all about the complexity of its construction.
After that we paid a quick visit to the Computer centre, where we found out how many computers and processors are used to collect all CERN’s data. We also learnt that the world wide web and hyper text protocol were concieved at CERN.
A stop off to the Particles exhibition concluded our visit before heading back into Geneva on the tram.
After lunch in the restaurant of Manor, a department store, students took advantage of some shopping time to buy gifts to take home and a few treats for themselves.
We then wandered down to the lakeside and took one of the taxi boats or ‘mouettes’ (seagulls) over to the other side of the lake, getting a better view of the Jets d’eau and the city from the lake. It was a short ride but worth this last stop off for those all important last scenic photos.
Safe to say that a very tired group of students made their way to the airport and boarded the plane back home. Hopefully they were not too exhausted by the many hours of walking and masses of information they have experienced over the past few days. I think that one of the highlights was watching our students eagerly getting up to play the longhorn at Eidelweiss restaurant.
One thing for sure- these students have been excellent representatives of Bushey Meads School, behaving beautifully and politely at all times. It was a pleasure to take them away on a trip and I really enjoyed getting to know some of them better. I am very proud of them all.
Watch out for next week’s news article which will be composed of extracts from all the students’ diaries.
