Quarks: the building blocks of matter is an activity based on a puzzle devised at CERN. Its aim is to introduce to the students the laws that allow quarks to combine in order to form protons and neutrons, which constitute atomic nuclei, as well as other more exotic hadrons that are part of our Standard Model of particles.

This activity can be adapted to the ages of the students by varying the complexity of the learning goals, which include the identification of the fundamental particles that appear in the Standard Model, their properties and the laws that dictate their interaction and how these particles combine into more complex ones.

Recommended ages: from 10 to 18 years old.