LIP-ECO | 29 Novembro, 2022

"During the Science and Technology Week, researchers from LIP were in schools talking about topics ranging from the Higgs boson to space exploration, cosmic rays tomography with muons for geological studies or women in science."

Pedro Teixeira is a PhD student at LIP and the University of Évora. His work topic is the LouMu project, in which the muon tomography technique is being used to "x-ray" geological structures in the Lousal mine, in the Alentejo - today, the Lousal Ciência Viva centre, Mine of Science. In muon tomography these particles, which are always coming to Earth and have the ability to pass through matter, are used to study the interior of large structures and objects. This time, at the invitation of Clube CIência Viva of the Rio Tinto Secondary School, Pedro Teixeira travelled north to talk precisely about the LouMu project.

Researcher Luísa Arruda's meeting was with an even younger audience: 7th grade students from the Vasco Santana School Grouping, in Ramada. The lecture took place in the scope of the "Space Goes to School" initiative of ESERO, an educational programme of the European Space Agency (ESA) that in Portugal is carried out in partnership with Ciência Viva. Luísa Arruda is a member of the AMS collaboration, a particle detector that is in the International Space Station, and of the LIP's Radiation Environments in Space group. This week, she will return to the same school to meet with young people from 9th grade!

Pedro Abreu and Luís Afonso (secondary school teacher and LIP collaborator) were in two secondary schools - also with their Clubes Ciência Viva, of which the LIP is a scientific partner. First at Escola Secundária de Camões, in Lisbon, where they talked about cosmic rays (particles coming from space that are constantly reaching Earth) and built a simple detector (cloud chamber) to observe traces of the passage of particles.

Finally, Pedro Abreu and Luís Afonso were at Sebastião e Silva Secondary School, in Oeiras, with the lecture "The Higgs Field in Oeiras" and cloud chamber cinstruction. It is worth mentioning that Pedro, who is a former student of this school (and today researcher at LIP and professor at IST) received the next day the Ciência Viva Educação 2022 award.

Also during the Science and Technology Week, but this time in Covilhã, Sandra Soares (LIP/UBI) spoke about "Biological effects of ionizing radiations" at Escola Secundária Frei Heitor Pinto; and Lígia Lopes gave a talk with the title "Women in Science" in Quinta das Palmeiras Secondary School, invited by the physics-chemistry teacher training group.