About Summer School

Regarding citizen scientists in general,the REINFORCE training course aims to:

• Bring participants up to date with the latest discoveries in the field of modern Physics through workshops delivered by leading experts in Physics.
• Help raise the participants’ knowledge regarding the scientific topics of REINFORCE and the role of large research infrastructures in society as well as in education.
• Empower participants to voice their own informed opinions and concerns and to support them to become active contributors in cutting edge research in Physics through the proposed citizen science approach.
• Help create and sustain a strong community of citizens, teachers and researchers, who are actively engaged in cutting edge research in Physics.

Regarding educators in particular, the REINFORCE training course aims to:

• Bring together, motivate and train educators from all over the world who share the common vision of introducing modern Physics in the classroom.
• Introduce a sound pedagogical methodology of applying citizen science to school education.
• Guide participants on how to connect modern achievements in Physics with their school curricula.
• Enable participants to become creators of educational content using real data from REINFORCE.
• Network participants among them as well as with leading experts in frontier Physics research and Science Education in order to collaborate towards the shared goal of introducing modern Physics in the classroom.

The REINFORCE Summer School brings together citizens, educators, researchers in frontier Physics and researchers in science education in order to create a joint framework for bridging the gap between Large Research Infrastructures in Physics and society through citizen science.

Through training workshops from world leading experts in frontier Physics, participants will be given the opportunity to delve deeper in cutting edge Physics topics such as the detection of gravitational waves from the VIRGO experiment, the detection of elementary particles from the ATLAS experiment at CERN or the detection of high energy cosmic neutrinos from the KM3NeT neutrino telescope in the Mediterranean. Participants will be introduced to the pedagogical framework, curricular connections and educational tools developed by science education experts of the REINFORCE consortium, in order to help introduce cutting edge scientific topics in their classroom. They will be offered step by step training to a wealth of educational resources, the “REINFORCE demonstrators” which introduce concepts from Astrophysics and Gravitational Wave Astronomy to Particle and Astroparticle Physics using real data, demonstrations, simple experiments and online labs. They will learn how to use real data to optimize large research infrastructures in order to support scientists to reduce the noise of their experiments and facilitate new discoveries. Furthermore, participants will participate in virtual visits in large research infrastructures in Physics and will be able to discuss with practicing scientists in an authentic setting.

Finally, participants will collaborate with each other and with the experts of the REINFORCE team in order to co-create educational content tailored for their needs and adapted to their respective school curricula. They will reflect on the process and will participate in a round table discussion to help offer recommendations for the modernization of Physics curricula in Europe.

The training will be active and collaborative through dedicated workshops and seminars. Post-course social media and online community platforms will be used to support ongoing development of ideas and group support and feedback.