Top European Research Labs have announced the selection of three teams of high school students-- one each from Pakistan, the Netherlands and the United States-- to conduct accelerator beam experiments at CERN and DESY. They won the Beamline for Schools (BL4S), a physics competition open to secondary school pupils (Grade 9 to 12) from all around the world. Pakistani and US teams will travel to CERN, Geneva, in September 2023 to perform the experiments that they proposed. The Dutch team will be hosted by DESY in Hamburg, Germany.
Beamline for Schools Competition Sponsored by CERN, Switzerland and DESY, Germany |
Pakistan's winning team named "Particular Perspective" has drawn its members from the Islamabad College for Boys, Supernova School in Islamabad, the Cadet College in Hasanabdal, the Siddeeq Public School in Rawalpindi and the Cedar College in Karachi, Pakistan. Here's an excerpt of the joint announcement by CERN (Switzerland) and DESY (Germany):
"In 2023, for the second time in the history of the Beamline for Schools competition, the evaluation committee selected three winning teams. The team “Myriad Magnets” from the Philips Exeter Academy, in Exeter, United States, and the team “Particular Perspective”, which brings together pupils from the Islamabad College for Boys, the Supernova School in Islamabad, the Cadet College in Hasanabdal, the Siddeeq Public School in Rawalpindi and the Cedar College in Karachi, Pakistan, will travel to CERN, Geneva, in September 2023 to perform the experiments that they proposed. The team “Wire Wizards” from the Augustinianum school in Eindhoven, Netherlands, will be hosted at DESY (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron in Hamburg, Germany) to carry out its experiment".
The Pakistan team “Particular Perspective” will measure in detail the beam composition of the T10 beamline of the CERN Proton Synchrotron accelerator. The experiment set-up they designed will make it possible to differentiate between different particle species and measure their intensity.
Recently, Pakistani students won more EU-funded Erasmus scholarships than students from any other country in the world. These are fully-funded scholarships for recipients to study at universities in the European Union. Pakistan has also seen a post-pandemic surge of student visas to study in Australia, the US and UK this year.
In 2014, Pakistan became the first Asian country and only the third in the world (outside of Western Europe) after Turkey and Serbia to be honored with CERN's associate membership. The status of associate member is a step before full membership. As an associate member, Pakistan is entitled to attend open and restricted sessions of the organization.
The CERN was founded in 1953 by 12 European nations including Belgium, Denmark, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Yugoslavia. The organization was subsequently joined by Austria (1959), Spain (1961-1969, re-joined 1983), Portugal (1985), Finland (1991), Poland (1991), Czechoslovak Republic (1992), Hungary (1992), Bulgaria (1999) and Israel (2014). The Czech Republic and Slovak Republic re-joined CERN after their mutual independence in 1993. CERN now has 21 member states and Romania is a candidate to become a member state. Serbia is an associate member in the pre-stage to membership. "Observer" status allows non-member states to attend council meetings and to receive council documents, without taking part in the decision-making procedures of the organization. Over 600 institutes and universities around the world use CERN's facilities.
Pakistan's National Center for Physics (NCP) has been collaborating with CERN since 2000. Pakistan's associate membership application was unanimously approved at a meeting of the CERN council in 2014. The final approval came after a report of a CERN “fact-finding mission” to Pakistan in February 2014 was accepted.
CERN is leading the most high-profile effort to find "God Particle" about 300 ft below ground in a tunnel at the French-Swiss border. Buried there is a massive particle accelerator and super collider called LHC (Large Hadron Collider) run by CERN (European Organization of Nuclear Research), which has two beams of particles racing at nearly the speed of light in opposite directions and the resulting particles produced from collisions are being detected by massive detectors in the hope of experimentally finding the fundamental particle of which everything in the universe is built from: God Particle.
Dr. Hafeez Hoorani and President Musharraf |
Among the world scientists working at CERN on LHC project is Professor Hafeez Hoorani of Pakistan's Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad. He is one of 27 Pakistani scientists at CERN. Hoorani has acknowledged that Pakistan government's support for Pakistani scientists' serious involvement at CERN materialized only after 1999, the year former President Musharraf's government assumed power. He also gives credit to Dr. Abdus Salam, Pakistan's only Nobel Laureate, for inspiring him and his colleagues to pursue serious scientific research. Here's what Professor Hoorani says about Pakistan's involvement in LHC and CERN:
When I first came to CERN, I was mainly working on technical things but became increasingly involved in political issues. In 1999, I went back to Pakistan to set up a group working on different aspects of the LHC project. There I had to convince my people and my government to collaborate with CERN, which was rather difficult, since nobody associated science with Switzerland. It is known as a place for tourism, for its watches, and nice places to visit.
However, Pakistan already had an early connection to CERN through the late Abdus Salam, the sole Nobel laureate from Pakistan in science and one of the fathers of the electroweak theory. CERN has been known to the scientific community of Pakistan since 1973 through the discovery of neutral currents which eventually led to the Nobel Prize for Salam. We are contributing much more now because of the students who worked with Salam, who know his theories and CERN, and who are now placed at highly influential positions within the government of Pakistan. They have helped and pushed Pakistan towards a very meaningful scientific collaboration with CERN. People now know that there is an organization called CERN. It took a long time to explain what CERN is about, and I brought many people here to show them, because they did not imagine CERN this way. Many people support us now which gives us hope…”
In addition to the 27 scientists, Pakistan has made material contributions to the tune of $10m. Pakistan signed an agreement with CERN which doubled the Pakistani contribution from one to two million Swiss francs. And with this new agreement Pakistan started construction of the resistive plate chambers required for the CMS muon system. While more recently, a protocol has been signed enhancing Pakistan’s total contribution to the LHC program to $10 million.
Pakistan has contributed the LHC in numerous ways including some of the following in particular:
1. Detector construction
2. Detector simulation
3. Physics analysis
4. Grid computing
5. Computational software development
6. Manufacturing of mechanical equipment
7. Alignment of the CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) tracker using lasers
8. Testing of electronic equipment
9. Barrel Yoke: 35 Ton each feet made in Pakistan
10. Assembly of CF (Carbon Fiber) Fins for the Silicon Tracker’s TOB (Tracker Outer Barrel).
11. 245 of the 300 CMS chambers required were made in Islamabad.
DESY (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron), is a national research center for fundamental science located in Hamburg, Germany. It operates particle accelerators for investigating the structure, dynamics and function of matter, and conducts a broad spectrum of interdisciplinary scientific research in four main areas: particle and high energy physics; photon science; astro-particle physics; and the development, construction and operation of particle accelerators. Its name refers to its first project, an electron synchrotron.
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Beamline for Schools is an Education and Outreach project funded by the CERN & Society Foundation and supported by individual donors, foundations and companies. For 2019, the project is partially funded by the Wilhelm and Else Heraeus Foundation; additional contributions have been received from the Motorola Solutions Foundation, Amgen Switzerland AG and the Ernest Solvay Fund, which is managed by the King Baudouin Foundation.
https://stem.utah.gov/dutch-and-us-students-win-2019-cern-beamline-for-schools-competition/
Shortlist drawn up by CERN and DESY experts:
A Light in the Darkness (USA)
Centaurus Warriors (USA)
Cosmic Conquerors (Thailand)
DESY Chain (USA)
DESYners (USA)
JT/High Pawns (Pakistan)
Jubarte Team (Brazil)
Leftover Leptons (India)
Magic Doubly Magic Nuclei (Poland)
My Little Positron(Australia)
Particle peers (The Netherlands)
Raiders of the Lost Quark (UAE)
RAM FAM (Australia)
Salvo Krevas (Malaysia)
Team John Monash Science School (Australia)
The Baryonic Six (Sweden)
The Lumineers (Pakistan)
The Weak Force (South Africa)
Unstoppable SPAS (China)
Young Researchers (Ukraine)
Three teams of secondary school pupils from the Netherlands, Pakistan and the United States have been selected to carry out their own experiments using accelerator beams from CERN and DESY
https://home.cern/news/press-release/cern/three-teams-secondary-school-pupils-netherlands-pakistan-and-usa-win-10th
Geneva and Hamburg, 28 June 2023. In 2023, for the second time in the history of the Beamline for Schools competition, the evaluation committee selected three winning teams. The team “Myriad Magnets” from the Philips Exeter Academy, in Exeter, United States, and the team “Particular Perspective”, which brings together pupils from the Islamabad College for Boys, the Supernova School in Islamabad, the Cadet College in Hasanabdal, the Siddeeq Public School in Rawalpindi and the Cedar College in Karachi, Pakistan, will travel to CERN, Geneva, in September 2023 to perform the experiments that they proposed. The team “Wire Wizards” from the Augustinianum school in Eindhoven, Netherlands, will be hosted at DESY (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron in Hamburg, Germany) to carry out its experiment.
BL4S started in 2014 on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of CERN. Following the success of the first edition, the competition continued, reaching its 10th edition in 2023. Since 2014, 22 teams have been awarded as winners in BL4S, while more than 16 000 pupils from all over the world have taken part in the competition. The participation rate has been rising consistently for the past few years, and this year, 379 teams from 63 countries submitted an experiment proposal.
“Congratulations to this year’s winners – may they have good beams, collect interesting data and generally have the time of their lives,” says Christoph Rembser, a CERN physicist at the ATLAS experiment and one of the founders of Beamline for Schools. “Every year I am astonished by how many young people submit very creative, interesting proposals. In 2014, we weren’t sure at all whether this competition would work. Ten years and 16 000 participants later, I am proud to say that it is obviously a resounding success.”
The fruitful collaboration between CERN and DESY started in 2019 during the shutdown period of the CERN accelerators. This year, the German laboratory will host its fifth team of winners.
“I am amazed that this time a record number of nearly 380 applications from school teams worldwide was received! It is fantastic that so many young people are interested in doing hands-on research at our laboratories,” says Beate Heinemann, DESY Director in charge of particle physics. “DESY is very happy to be part of this endeavour together with CERN, and to offer its test beam this year to a team from the Netherlands.”
Preparing a proposal for a particle physics experiment is a very challenging task for secondary school pupils but, when provided with the right support, the participants design very creative experiments. The “Myriad Magnets” team from the United States plans to build and test a permanent magnet with the Halbach geometry that can be configured to produce a dipole or a quadrupole magnetic field.
“BL4S supported us to directly explore and apply new skills, particularly in the intersection of physics and engineering. It is hard to find challenging and intellectually fruitful opportunities that tackle research in both; BL4S filled this gap, and we look forward to continuing to build on these areas at CERN and in the coming years,” says Isabella Vesely, one of the “Myriad Magnets” pupils.
The Pakistan team “Particular Perspective” will measure in detail the beam composition of the T10 beamline of the CERN Proton Synchrotron accelerator. The experiment set-up they designed will make it possible to differentiate between different particle species and measure their intensity.
24 Pakistani students from Karachi participate in US space camp
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2426811/24-pakistani-students-from-karachi-participate-in-us-space-camp
Thanks to a US government-funded grant, 24 Pakistani students, both male and female, from three schools in Karachi are currently taking part in the US Space and Rocket Center's prestigious Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama.
This initiative aims to promote and expand Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education in Karachi schools. The US Consulate General in Karachi collaborated with The Dawood Foundation's (TDF) MagnifiScience Centre, the implementing partner, to facilitate this programme in 50 schools across the city.
The US grant encompassed three key components: STEM training for 100 Pakistani teachers, educational field trips for over 1,000 students to the MagnifiScience Centre, and a culminating science project competition.
The primary objective of this grant was to stimulate an increase in STEM education and encourage schools in Karachi to allocate more resources toward training their staff, thereby enhancing learning outcomes. The aim is to motivate students to pursue careers in science-related fields, meeting the growing demand for STEM graduates in industry, academia, and research.
The United States has consistently shown commitment to supporting STEM education in Pakistan through various educational programmes. This includes previous initiatives such as sending cohorts of Pakistani students to Space Camp in 2011 and 2015. The United States emphasises inclusive STEM education, green technologies, and entrepreneurship for young individuals worldwide, as a means to foster sustainable economic growth within their own countries.
The primary objective of this grant was to stimulate an increase in STEM education and encourage schools in Karachi to allocate more resources toward training their staff, thereby enhancing learning outcomes. The aim is to motivate students to pursue careers in science-related fields, meeting the growing demand for STEM graduates in industry, academia, and research.
The United States has consistently shown commitment to supporting STEM education in Pakistan through various educational programmes. This includes previous initiatives such as sending cohorts of Pakistani students to Space Camp in 2011 and 2015. The United States emphasises inclusive STEM education, green technologies, and entrepreneurship for young individuals worldwide, as a means to foster sustainable economic growth within their own countries.
The inter-school competition revolved around the theme of eco-sustainability and entrepreneurship. Each competing team was provided with science kits as a resource. A panel of judges selected eight students and one teacher from three schools based on their outstanding projects. These three winning teams, consisting of 24 students and their three teachers, recently traveled to Huntsville, Alabama to participate in Space Camp. The winning science projects demonstrated the remarkable results achieved through collaborative efforts, brainstorming, and cooperation among team members.
The winning projects and teams are as follows:
KMA Girls & Boys Primary School's team: "Chicken Feathers - Go Green before the Green Goes." The project involved using chicken feathers to create paper.
Evergreen Elementary School's team: "Anti-Sleep Glasses." Their project focused on developing glasses with a built-in alarm to reduce vehicle accidents caused by driver fatigue.
KMA Boys Secondary School's team: "Plastic Road." This project explored the use of waste plastic to create roads with a lifespan of 50+ years.
Report reveals widening European interest and shift towards STEM
https://thepienews.com/news/interest-european-studies-shift-stem/
https://studyportals.typeform.com/to/PkDRfZl8/
Students from Pakistan and Bangladesh are driving interest in education across continental Europe – a region that is maintaining a “strong appeal” for international students – but government policy, among other factors, may be impacting students’ choices, according to new research.
“Although India generates the largest share of relative demand [at bachelor’s level], this fluctuates drastically and has gradually declined overall,” the report noted. “Conversely, you can see that Bangladesh and Pakistan have increased their share of the interest.”
The research tracks a similar trend in master’s, with India showing a “general decline in interest year-on-year”, with Bangladesh and Pakistan, alongside students in Turkey and Iran, showing “strong demand to study master’s programs”.
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Additionally, program preference is shifting towards artificial intelligence, data science & big data, business intelligence & analytics, entrepreneurship and engineering management.
Analysing data collected in the year up to May 2023, the Studyportals Destination Europe report delves into trends in master’s and bachelor’s programs, as well as taking a closer look at the business and management discipline – which the paper noted as most popular for international students in general.
One in five students looking to study in Europe are interested in the discipline, the company noted.
While Germany “holds significant global market share of student interest”, the analysis found a “drop in relative demand” for its programs, while Norway had seen the “largest decline” in relative demand. The drop is likely influenced by the introduction of tuition fees, the paper said.
At the other end of the spectrum, Italy is continuing to grow in its popularity among international students, at both the bachelor’s and master’s levels.
Pakistani Student Enrollment In Germany Soars By 30%
https://thefridaytimes.com/24-Nov-2023/pakistani-student-enrollment-in-germany-soars-by-30-percent
The educational landscape in Germany sees a dynamic transformation as Pakistani student enrollment surges by an impressive 30 percent. Statistics from the academic years 2020–21 to 2022–23 revealed a growth from 6,403 to 8,208 Pakistani students.
The German higher education sector, boasting a total enrollment of 458,210 international students as of 2022-2023, stands witness to this remarkable influx. Among these students, the discipline of engineering emerges as a beacon, with 145,707 individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds immersing themselves in the technical realms of innovation and progress.
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