Through my colleague Marco Cirelli I got to know about the effort of 36 high-school student of Charlottesville (VA), who are fund-raising for a trip to CERN this spring. I thus visited their home page, and got favourably impressed with the organization of their campaign, which betrays their strong collective interest in the trip.

Beware, I am not old enough to have completely forgotten that, as much as I was interested in Science already as a teenager, back then that was not the main reason for being enthusiastic about school trips, even when we visited science museums or such. I am quite sure these students first and foremost want to make a trip to Europe together, with the relative benefits of a week away from home, getting drunk and party all night, etcetera. But I am also sure their interest in visiting CERN is genuine. And theirs is the age at which individuals who later end up becoming physicists typically fall in love with the matter, and decide that it is what they want to do with their life: becoming a scientist.

So if you help these 36 students get to CERN by donating even just 20 or 50 bucks, be sure that there is a good chance that you are contributing to the first step of a scientific career !