More "Hands-On" Particle Physics: Learning with ATLAS at CERN

This article introduces teachers and students to a new portal of resources called Learning with ATLAS at CERN (http://learningwithatlas-portal.eu/), which has been developed by a European consortium of academic researchers and schools' liaison and outreach providers from countries across Europe. It includes the use of some of the mind-boggling facts and figures from the Large Hadron Collider experiment to illustrate some basic school physics concepts. It also uses innovative software adapted and made available on the web by European particle physics researchers to introduce a more innovative investigative approach to teaching particle physics concepts. This gives students a more 'hands-on' experience in the classroom and a feel for what real scientific research might be like.