KZV Students Visit SLAC

Recently, through the efforts of Dr. Anahid Yeremian, our seventh and eighth grade students had the wonderful opportunity to visit the Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC). Our experience began with a school visit by Dr. Yeremian for an explanation of the types of research that are being conducted at SLAC, and a short introduction to particle physics.

At SLAC, Ms. Lina Ruhlman greeted us, and gave an introductory talk about the construction of the facility, and how research being done there has progressed and changed throughout the years. Thanks to special arrangements by Dr. Yeremian, our students were able to tour parts of the SLAC facility that are not usually available to visitors. We were especially grateful to Dr. Christine Trame, who allowed us to visit her lab, and gave her time to explain the very interesting work that she is doing with proteins.

Our thanks goes to all the people who made our day enjoyable, educational, and memorable. We especially want to thank Dr. Yeremian for her continual support of science education at KZV, and for her invitation to SLAC. We hope to have the opportunity to visit again in the future.

Mrs. M. Kostanian

Our class visit to SLAC was very enjoyable since we learned many new and interesting facts and knowledge about not only about the facility, but also about the history of SLAC and what people do there today. I think it was very interesting the architects took advantage of the environment and built the accelerator in the earth and used the earth as a nature insulator. It was also fascinating how they built the machine mostly out of copper instead of other materials. I also think that Dr. Trame’s research with the proteins using the accelerator was also very fascinating. Dr. Yeremian’s tour gave us a lot of information that helped us understand what everyone was doing so that we wouldn’t be completely confused. Ms. Rulhman’s presentation also gave us a lot of information on SLAC’s history like how they had 6 Nobel Prize winners from SLAC.

Daron Nahabedian

The SLAC trip is one of the few trips I will never forget. It was fun and interesting. Thank you Dr. Yeremian for organizing the very special trip for us. We got to see many things that everyday people don’t get to see. I enjoyed seeing an actual part of the accelerator. I expected it to be much wider though. My favorite part of the trip was trying to navigate through the Hutch. It was very confusing with many hallways and doors. You could get easily lost in there. Besides that, I really like the robot work with the proteins. Dr. Trame explained everything very well and it was fun to actually see a robot at work. I would like to thank everyone at SLAC for letting us see and enjoy their work. Thank You!

Arpi Deirmendjian

My visit to SLAC was one of the most interesting field trip I have been on this year. I learned a lot of extraordinary thing s at their facility like how their accelerator was built, how it works, and what they have accomplished for more than 50 years. I would like to thank Dr. Yeremian for giving her time to show us around SLAC and what she works with every day. I’d like to thank Dr. Trane for showing us microscopic proteins with her robot which was very neat. I would also like to thank Ms. Ruhlman for giving us a presentation on the history of SLAC and many other interesting things like how SLAC scientists have won 6 Nobel Prizes. My favorite thing I learned at SLAC was how they were the first ones to use the internet and how they had built their accelerator.

Herag Aristakessian