Photo- left to right: Liz Bonnin (guest speaker), Aiden, Clinton, Zaneer, Dishika, Hazel Bridges (Cirencester College)
Cirencester College Students Attend IRIS Awards Ceremony
The Institute of Research in Schools (IRIS) recently held their annual awards evening at the Francis Crick Institute, London. As the first group of students from Cirencester College to take part in these research projects, Clinton, Dishika, Zaneer & Aiden travelled to London to receive a Highly Commended award in the Best New School category.
Their project, in association with the University of Oxford, used neural networks to analyse data from the ATLAS detector at CERN, Geneva to identify the presence of the Higgs Boson. Throughout the project they demonstrated fantastic motivation and enthusiasm to acquire new programming skills, research particle physics theory, create an academic poster, present their findings at a student conference and learn how to work together as a team.
The IRIS project aims to enable students to conduct real scientific research, allowing them to experience the practical problem-solving demands of research, spark their interest in science and its applications but also how to work together to achieve more. This project was the highlight of the year for all those involved and will continue to be an opportunity offered to students.
Hazel Bridges, Physics Lecturer at Cirencester College, said “The IRIS project has provided an excellent opportunity to stretch and challenge our students as well as giving them invaluable experience of the world of research.”
Dishika, said “The best part of the project was meeting experienced researchers and picking their brains about dark matter.”
For more information on this story please contact chloe.suter@cirencester.ac.uk
