SPRACE has numerous outreach activities that aim to teach and inspire students. Since 2008 we host the International MasterClass event every year, bringing High School students to our center to learn more about high energy physics (HEP). The participants attend lectures and are involved in hands-on-acitivies, analyzing real data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and discussing the results with researchers from institutes located in different countries around the world. Since 2017 we also organize a special edition of the event just for girls, with the aim of reducing the gender gap in the STEM fields.

SPRACE also created the SPRACE Game to teach HEP concepts in a fun and easy way. The game transports players to the subatomic scale, where they command a miniaturized spacecraft and must capture particles to learn about them. While having fun fulfilling entertaining missions, the player learns particle physics concepts such as leptons, quarks, the composition of hadrons, color charge and the strong interaction.

In addition, we created a poster explaining the Standard Model of Particle Physics in a language that can be understood by High School and graduate students. In 2008 we distributed a poster to every High School in Brazil – almost 25 thousand schools received at least one copy. In 2018, a new version of the poster was distributed to over 120 physics research institutions in the country.

SPRACE also has a Science News blog and a Facebook page to let our followers know about the latest and most relevant science news. If you are interested in receiving these news and other SPRACE updates via e-mail, you can subscribe to our mailing list.

MasterClass

SPRACE Game

Poster

Aventura das Partículas