Students present projects at the National Physics Experiments Meeting, at Preparatory School 15

Juan Guillermo and Ángel David are students at Preparatory School 9 and are convinced that modern physics is one of the areas to explore in the future; that is why this year they decided to participate in the XXXII National Meeting of Physics Apparatus and Experiments to demonstrate the benefits of particle accelerators.

Like those two, dozens of high school students from various states of Mexico joined this meeting that takes place at the facilities of Preparatory School 15, where the XXXI National Teaching Meeting is also being held simultaneously.

This event is scheduled for September 20-22 and is expected to include more than 87 student projects from institutions in Morelos, Chihuahua, the State of Mexico, Puebla, Oaxaca, Guanajuato, Jalisco, and other states. In addition, there will be more than 40 conferences dedicated to teaching this science.

Professor Gerardo Mejía Lomelí emphasized that this event brings together Mexican minds passionate about physics, and choosing this school for the activities was a wise decision, as it is one of the most emblematic places in the Red Universitaria for the teaching of these scientific areas.

“The objective of this meeting is clear: to share experiences and teaching strategies related to the teaching of physics at the upper secondary and higher education levels, in order to improve teaching performance,” he shared.

Teacher Paulino García Ramírez , in charge of the Science Club at the Jocotepec High School and advisor to several students, explained that this initiative not only seeks to make visible the work that the students develop in physics, but also aims to bring them closer to the scientific topics that are developed in their surroundings.

“Young people have a capacity for wonder, and if we continue to cultivate this in them, they will become more interested. If, as teachers, academics, or as an institution, we cannot capture that interest, we are failing,” he emphasized.

He considered that learning and understanding physics is also a factor that contributes to promoting environmental care, and stressed that approaching science is a further step for societies to promote environmental protection.

“Physics allows us to recognize what natural phenomena are and how they affect us when we do not have a brake on the attack on those natural resources,” he asserted.

An encounter with science

Students Juan Guillermo Bautista Zamudio and Ángel David Espino de Arcos, fifth-semester students, joined this initiative with a replica of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) located at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN).

Ángel David mentioned that his project was built as an analogy to the LHC in order to explain the functions of the device and show an approach to the technology used in modern physics.

“By developing, searching for and finding more particles in these accelerators, our society could advance at an incredible speed; this was seen in 2012 with the Higgs Boson,” he said.

“We’ve been working for two months, literally day and night. We’re researching theory, because we not only have to look at the theory of electronics or aerodynamics, but also particle physics,” he emphasized.

The high school student announced that he will seek to study physics at the University Center for Exact Sciences and Engineering (CUCEI)Meanwhile, Juan Guillermo will seek to enter the Robotics Engineering program at the same campus.

In addition to this educational particle accelerator, the other students showcased projects and experiments focused on topics such as electromagnetism, clean energy, thermodynamics, and more.

The XXXII National Meeting of Physics Apparatus and Experiments and the XXXI National Teaching Meeting will continue their activities until September 22nd at the facilities of Prepa 15.

The opening of the activities was attended by Dr. Socorro Pérez Alcalá, Academic Secretary of the Higher Secondary Education System (SEMS); Juan Alberto Quesada García, Director of Training and Educational Offer of Zapopan; Dr. Julio Mendoza Álvarez, President of the Mexican Physics Society, as well as teacher Jazmín Robles Lama, Director of Preparatory School 15, among others.

Attentively
"Piensa y Trabaja"
“2023, Year of promoting comprehensive education with a Network of Multi-thematic Centers and Systems”
Guadalajara, Jalisco, September 20, 2023

Text: Pablo Miranda Ramírez
Photography: Adriana González