On Saturday, November 16, 2024, a teacher training course on astronomy and particle physics took place at the University of Bonn's Research and Technology Center for Detector Physics (FTD). The event was a joint project of the initiatives PUNCH4NFDI, ESERO and the Particle World Network. Under the motto “From the Big Bang to quarks: What drives our universe?”, the training course was dedicated to the connections between the largest and smallest things in the universe and showed how current research in these areas can be integrated into school lessons.
The participants not only received scientific lectures and practical elements, but also gained an authentic insight into current research in detector physics at the University of Bonn through guided tours of the FTD. The developments and technologies presented illustrated how basic physics research is implemented in modern experiments.
Another focus of the training course was on modular teaching materials that can be used in physics lessons at upper secondary level. These are suitable for topics such as “Circular motion, gravitation and physical world views” or “Classical waves and charged particles” in the introductory phase as well as “Radiation and matter” (foundation course), “Atomic and nuclear physics” (advanced course) or “Quantum physics” (foundation and advanced course) in the qualification phase.
The training offered teachers and student teachers valuable impulses for integrating modern physics issues based on current research data into the classroom. The event and in particular the interdisciplinary format met with great interest among the teachers and will hopefully be offered again in a similar form in the future.
