The JINR School for Teachers of Physics from JINR Member States was held on 25 June – 1 July 2017. The JINR University Centre holds these schools on the basis of JINR and the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

This school if the 11th, inclusive of the first three schools which were held for teachers of physics from Moscow and the Moscow region. This year, 28 people participate in the school: 10 school students and 18 teachers. Russia is widely represented: Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, Chuvashia, Siberia, Central regions. The JINR Member States are also represented: a teacher with two students from Ukraine, a teacher with two students from Kazakhstan, two teachers from Belarus with students, teachers from Bulgaria and, for the first time, from Azerbaijan. The school programme includes traditional components such as lectures, excursions to the JINR basic facilities, conference of school students, where they present their reports. The organizers of the school noted that this year reports of the schoolchildren were very interesting. One full day of the school students was entirely devoted to labs with Ivan Lomachenkov and Danila Kozhevnikov.

This year, the scool organizers introduced a new format of education called “Work in groups” to employ creative potential of the school participants. The teachers were divided into four groups and the fifth for the students. The school students were given a task to write an informal essay “How I spent my vacation at JINR”, which they can later share with friends and classmates. The teachers’ group “SciPop” was given a task to draw attention to science and, in particular, to JINR. A group “Webdesigners” dealt with analysis of the structure, content and functionality of the UC website through which the UC screens teachers for this school. There was a group “Perfect visit to JINR” which dealt with planning of excursions for school students – virtual tour and real visit. Now this UC school is faced with problems of selection – there are too many of applications for visits, so organizers have to refuse, so they need a system of selection at the stage of submission of applications. Maybe this will be an informal task, maybe some kind of test that requires some qualification. One more group was called “Do it yourself”. The renewed Museum of JINR now has the “Experimentarium” hall where there is always a place for new models of facilities. This group have been assembling a facility which will be the new exhibit of the Museum.

Photos by Igor Lapenko