Every year, high-achieving secondary school students around the world visit the nearby universities to try and untangle the mysteries of particle physics, for the one-day International Particle Physics Masterclass.
Inspired by the discovery of the Higgs boson particle, around 100 Australian students took part in the masterclass, held for the first time in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide, on 3 October.
Amongst them was South Oakleigh Secondary College Year 11 student, Gina Gahtidi.
Despite the fact that Gina Gahtidi migrated from Greece with her parents only one year ago, she has been coping with studies at college so well that, due to her academic excellence, she was one of only 29 Year 12 and high-achieving Year 11 students chosen to attend the International Masterclass at the University of Melbourne.
The masterclass, organised in collaboration with the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Particle Physics at the Terascale (CoEPP) and the International Particle Physics Outreach Group, gave students the opportunity to connect with particle physicists around the world, with Fermilab in Chicago through a video link, and to host a virtual visit, from ATLAS control room, of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research – CERN, in Geneva.
And for engaging South Oakleigh College in an international physics masterclass, the credit goes to its physics teacher, Frank De La Rambelya, who instigated the program after attending a 2013 High School Teachers Program in CERN in July this year.
Now the physics teacher and philhellene is keen to highlight the Greek thread that the program carries, and to try and implement it in Australian schools, promoting physics at the secondary education sector.
“Within those three weeks at CERN, one of the key components was devised by the University of Athens,” he says.
Over the years, together with her group, Professor Christine Kourkoumelis has developed the interactive analysis program, the so-called HYPATIA (Hybrid Pupil’s Analysis Tool for Interactions in ATLAS). HYPATIA was the first program to allow students to analyse data taken from real Large Hadron Collider (LHC) events, the world’s largest particle accelerator that explores the fundamental building blocks of the universe.
The name HYPATIA, Mr De La Rambelya explains, is an acronym, but also a key connection to encourage female students to undertake high academic studies such as physics, inspired by Hypatia, the first well-documented woman in mathematics.
“HYPATIA enables the real data to be on the laptop in front of the students so they can analyse it. Only recently it has been put to teachers to use it and in CERN, we were instructed on how to do it.”
Amongst the activities of the CERN High School Teachers Program was to ensure that Gina and her fellow students attend the international masterclass in Melbourne. With their knowledge from the masterclass, they later helped their teacher to introduce the software to the classroom. Since than, Angelos Alexopoulos, a CERN education officer supporting HYPATIA implantation in schools around the world, has encouraged Mr De La Rambelya to set up what is called an e-Masterclass.
“e-Masterclass happens in the classroom itself. At this stage, with the encouragement and help of this young Greek man, I am trying to organise a few schools to start using HYPATIA in their classroom, together with Skype links to each other and Skype links to ATLAS, in CERN. It’s planned for next year, and until then I am looking for teachers who are interested to find out more about HYPATIA, and to implement it,” Mr De La Rambelya tells.
Though to take part in a masterclass, excellence in physics is required, Gina Gahtidi is not looking at it as a future profession. She will stick to zoology, which she has always been interested in, with physics as something she “might be studying or learning about, on the side line, in future”.
“I always thought that learning or experiencing something new won’t do me wrong. I guess what excited me most was the fact that it was an international project linking us up with groups in Sydney, Adelaide and Medford High School near Boston, Massachusetts, all doing the same thing at the same time. It was interactive, and exciting because they let us think for ourselves, bring our own conclusions.
“The project had been simplified for students’ level and was relatively easy to understand. We were given real data collected from the LHC by the ATLAS detector, which we had to analyse using the HYPATIA program created by Professor Kourkoumelis’ team at the University of Athens. One of the highlights of the day was that we were not told what to expect, so that what we found seemed like making a discovery,” Gina tells Neos Kosmos.
“The Greek connection made me feel happy and proud, especially with the current situation, because it’s reached the point where you think that everything has halted in Greece. And then we have this wonderful project coming out that is very useful – not only for Greek students but also for international schools,” she says thoughtfully.
With her achievements in only one year in Australia, Gina has made her college proud. Sophie Stamatelatos, Modern Greek and English teacher at South Oakleigh College, says that following Gina’s example, students from all backgrounds should be encouraged to take part in this innovative program.
“She has recently arrived from Greece and she has displayed academic excellence, resilience and passion – all strong indicators of her Greek heritage. By pursuing her love of physics she is connecting with esteemed professors from Athens University and from CERN who are Greek and acting as a role model to all students of Greek background.”