OKEHAMPTON College has been invited to take part in an international physics experiment that will offer students the chance to 'make a genuine contribution' to scientific research.

The college has teamed up with the University of Bristol to monitor high energy cosmic rays through a pioneering programme called HiSparc, which the university has already rolled out to several schools in Bristol, enabling budding scientists to carry out serious research while at secondary school. Okehampton College is the first school in Devon to be invited to take part in the programme.

Once a cosmic ray detector is built on the roof of participating schools, pupils aged 14 to 18 can take part by collecting data which is fed into a central database and accessed by fellow researchers around the globe.

High energy particles, which continuously bombard the earth from outer space, generate showers in the atmosphere. The sources of these particles, in terms of physics processes and production locations, are still not well known.

Showers are measured by looking for coincidences between hits in detectors. Time differences give information on the angle that the shower makes with respect to the detector system.

Dr Robert Kelly is head of physics at Okehampton College. He is excited about the opportunities the experiment will create for students to make a genuine contribution to the world of science.

He said: 'The university has been setting up these detectors at schools in Bristol, but through a contact in Bristol we were able to get involved in the programme and become the first school in Devon to be involved in the HiSparc programme.

'We have a loan to hire the detectors for a year initially, possibly longer, and if the experiment proves a valuable learning tool like we think it will, it may be possible to buy them.

'They detect the particles that come from the most energetic events in the universe, like stars exploding, or supermassive black holes, which absorb matter at the centre of distant galaxies.

'These sorts of arrays are the only way we have to probe these high energy particles at that sort of scale.

'To put it into perspective, these particles are more energetic than any studied at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

'The plates we will use are made of a special material that will emit tiny flashes of light when these rays pass through them.

'The students had to clean the plates, then wrap them in foil to reflect this light, followed by black plastic sheets that will stop any other light entering them.

'In January these plates will be installed on the college roof and have detectors attached to begin gathering the data.

'The students involved will be collecting real hard data, and it is very much a unique learning opportunity for them.

'They have the opportunity to do as much analysis as they want, and their research may well make a genuine contribution to scientific research papers on the topic.

'That is a chance very few A-Level students will get to have.'

Dr Jaap Velthuis, senior lecturer in the University of Bristol's School of Physics, said: 'There are a lot of unanswered questions about cosmic rays so this is a great opportunity for school pupils to help by carrying out real experimental science.

'There are no text book problems and no text book answers – pupils are helping to write the book themselves.

'HiSparc is very popular in Europe, with some countries having a waiting list of schools keen to take part.

'The first schools joined approximately 12 years ago and the programme has been rolled out to countries such as Holland, Germany, Denmark, Austria, Vietnam and Poland.

'We now want Okehampton to be part of the experiment.

'Schools that take part benefit from a wealth of teaching materials, access to an annual conference, extra lab sessions, lectures and special seminars linked to the project.'