The Standard Model of particle physics is one of the most successful theories in physics and describes the fundamental interactions between elementary particles. It is encoded in a compact description, the so-called 'Lagrangian', which even fits on t-shirts and coffee mugs. This mathematical formulation, however, is complex and only rarely makes it into the physics classroom. Therefore, to support high school teachers in their challenging endeavour of introducing particle physics in the classroom, we provide a qualitative explanation of the terms of the Lagrangian and discuss their interpretation based on associated Feynman diagrams.

In the context of the recent re-start of CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the challenge presented by unidentified falling objects (UFOs), we seek to facilitate the introduction of high energy physics in the classroom. Therefore, this paper provides an overview of the LHC and its operation, highlighting existing education resources, and linking principal components of the LHC to topics in physics curricula.

This article presents a study that examined an innovative short‐term program (two sessions of 3 hr each) for the professional development of teachers. The program design is based on the technique of probing acceptance, which is aimed at investigating student learning processes. It relies on students' evaluation, paraphrasing, and adaptation of information presented during a one‐on‐one interview with defined student‐centered interview phases. During the professional development program, teachers were introduced to a novel learning unit that focuses on the subatomic structure of matter. In addition, the teachers were instructed in how to use the technique of probing acceptance during one‐on‐one interviews to evaluate the concepts of the unit. The rationale of the professional development program is that the preparation and execution of, and reflection on the one‐on‐one interviews based on the technique of probing acceptance should have an impact on dimensions of teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Four teachers from one Austrian high school participated in this exploratory study, and each teacher conducted two one‐on‐one interviews with two different grade‐6 students. Postintervention interviews were conducted with all the teachers to document the potential influences on the teachers' PCK. The interviews were transcribed word for word, and a category‐based content analysis was applied to the transcripts. Our results indicate that during the professional development program, all the teachers revisited their existing knowledge about the subatomic structure of matter and left with an enhanced PCK, especially regarding their knowledge of learners and of instructional strategies. Overall, we show the technique of probing acceptance to be a promising tool for short‐term professional development programs, and we suggest that our findings have implications for both professional development designers and educators.