Welcome to CERNland
Alberto sits down at a computer and brings up a clickable map of CERN. But rather than dry text, he is greeted with bright, musical animation, a pinball game, a quiz show, rocket ships, evil slugs, and music videos.
Soon the 11-year-old and his classmates are glued to the monitors and navigating their way through CERNland, an interactive Web site designed to help kids learn about the European lab, its experiments, and particle physics.
The students, from the International School of Geneva, tested the Web site before its spring public debut.
CERNland is loaded with games and activities, but also requires children to learn a handful of facts about CERN and its Large Hadron Collider. They must answer questions to move forward in a Super Mario Bros.-style game or to win a game show and earn the title of "Antimatter Researcher."
"We target an age range of 7 to 13. That's when kids discover science," says Silvano de Gennaro, project leader for CERNland. "Also, at that age their imaginations are so completely unrestrained that they can easily grasp some pretty awkward concepts, such as those you find in particle physics."
Available in English, Spanish, French, or Italian, the site was launched as part of CERN's celebration of the 20th anniversary of the World Wide Web. Robert Cailliau, a CERN systems engineer who was involved in the development of the Web, helped launch the site, and said he's glad to see CERN using the Web to reach out to kids.
The Web site's initial success already has producers planning new games about the history of the universe and the links between science, technology, and everyday life.
Try the game at: https:// project-cernland.web.cern.ch/ project-cernland/.
Calla Cofield
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