Essay competition for Particle Physics Summer School

Pupils from Schools in London and Birmingham will be taking part in a Particle Physics summer School at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN).

Pupils from London Schools  St Michael’s College, The Charter, Thomas Tallis, Alleyn’s, Dulwich College, Jags and King Edwards VI School and King Edward High School in Birmingham.

The Head of Physics at Alleyn’s School, Dr Alexandra Galloni developed the idea, with her old PhD supervisor at CERN, Prof Themis Bowcock, for a summer School hosted by PhD students at CERN.  This led to the idea of an essay competition and expanded to include Southwark School Learning Partnership (SSLP) schools.

This year, the 7th year, a total of 18 students from 8 different schools are taking part.

Alleyn’s School will be hosting an information evening for parents to gather and meet before the pupils attend the Particle School.

Teaching staff at Alleyn’s and all the Schools involved spend on average one or two hours per week from January to August to coordinate all aspects of the programme.

Like minded students are joined together for five days to work on Particle Physics projects at CERN. They work in close collaboration with each other and PhD students and experience what it is like to conduct research and develop links.

Pupil Involvement

Students from The Charter School share their thoughts on previous Summer School's they have attended.

"The preparation was very useful as it allowed us to use our own ideas to create something whilst also learning more about things we wouldn't otherwise have known about. It strayed away from a set 'curriculum' and allowed us to explore any possibility imaginable with incredible minds to guide us along the way and make our ideas become somewhat a reality. Picking the brains of the PhD students was not only educational, but also allowed us to build a great bond with them as we saw the similar passions we shared about physics, again, making the whole experience just that much better."

"This workshop gave me my first real experience with coding and filled me with a satisfaction I had never felt before; I was left with an adrenaline rush for an hour after the workshop had finished because I couldn't believe just how fun and dare I say cool I felt having accomplished such a high purity. The experience has pushed me to learn more about coding and I am currently using Code Academy to teach myself Python."

“This experience proved to be above and beyond what I could have ever hoped for....  I have gained more experiences and have felt more alive and passionate in my interests than ever before and will never be able to express how wholeheartedly appreciative I am of having been able to experience the things I did." 

This is an ongoing annual project.

CERN Accelerating science

Beamline for schools competition.

CERN’s Beamline for Schools Competition (BL4S) is a science competition open to high school students from all over the world. The prize, fabulous by any standards, is the opportunity to conduct an experiment for 10 days on-site at CERN, in Geneva. Now entering its tenth year, BL4S has enabled CERN to engage almost 22 teams and more than 17,000 students from across the globe to experience particle physics research first-hand. 

Through BL4S, students test themselves as innovators, problem solvers and collaborators, and are motivated to embark in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers to meet the growing demand for a stronger workforce with STEM skills.  In order to participate, students prepare experimental proposals, often with the help of members of the International Particle Physics Outreach Group (IPPOG) and other physicists around the world. 

The shortlisted teams win a cosmic-ray detector for their school (introduced for the first time in 2016), a BL4S t-shirt for each team member, and for some, the chance to visit a nearby physics laboratory. All participants in BL4S will receive a BL4S certificate. 

The winning teams selected will then travel together to CERN to perform their experiment. So far, more than 22 teams have seized this thrilling once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! In 2014, the winning teams came from Greece and the Netherlands; in 2015, Italy and South Africa; in 2016, Poland and the U.K.; in 2017, Italy and Canada; in 2018, India and Philippines; in 2019, Netherlands and USA; in 2020, Switzerland and Germany; in 2021 Italy and Mexico; in 2022 Egypt, France and Spain; in 2023, Pakistan, The Netherlands and the US .

For more information about the competition and the latest updates, please visit the BL4S website .

The Beamlines at CERN are undergoing scheduled regular maintenance and upgrade. Hence, for the 2023 edition, the Netherlands conducted experiments at DESY , Germany.

cern essay competition

CERN's Beamline for Schools Competition

Ages: High School

Type: Submission

Scope: International

Margherita Boselli [email protected]

Participate

International competition for high school students from all around the world organized by CERN , the European Organization for Nuclear Research, in Geneva, Switzerland.

The competition invites teams of high-school students to propose a scientific experiment that they want to perform at a particle accelerator beamline. A team of experts selects the best proposals, and the first prize is a trip to a particle physics facility to carry the proposed experiments at a fully-equipped accelerator beamline, with the help of professional scientists. There are additional prizes for shortlisted teams and certificates for all participants. The winners of the 10th edition of Beamline for Schools will be three, one team will perform its experiment at DESY in Hamburg, Germany, and two teams at CERN, do not hesitate to participate!.

There are no news items for this competition at this time.

Take part in hands-on scientific experiments on-site at CERN! Through BL4S, CERN offers a great opportunity for students to learn, make new discoveries and apply their knowledge into new settings. Student teams from across the world submit experiment proposals that are reviewed by scientists. Top teams are then invited on a trip to CERN and DESY to conduct their experiment with mentorship from scientists. Winning teams participate in a two week program with full cost covered to perform their proposed experiments together with professional scientists. All participants will receive a participation certificate and will have the opportunity to take part in several online events and virtual visits to discover CERN, DESY and their research.

Website: http://cern.ch/bl4s

Managing Organization: CERN

Contact: Margherita Boselli [email protected]

Eligibility: High school student teams across the world.

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Students from CERN competition publish research paper

The first ever paper to come from research conducted as part of CERN’s Beamline for Schools competition, has been published in a scientific journal

22 November, 2016

By Christoph Rembser

Five high-school students, who won the chance to conduct particle physics experiments at CERN in 2014, have just published the first ever research paper to come from CERN’s Beamline for Schools competition .

When they won the competition, Team Dominicuscollege, from Nijmegen, Netherlands, were given the opportunity to experience life as true scientists – writing proposals and conducting research on working scientific equipment. But now, the young winners have realised the rewards that come from having your research recognised by the rest of the science community.

The team published a paper in the scientific journal, Physics Education , instructing other students and schools how to build their own particle detector. In the first publication to come out of the competition ever, the team describes their experience at CERN, their interactions with other students, physicists and engineers, and how, for two weeks, they were treated as fully-fledged scientists, not high-school students. The students, together with their teachers, describe how their crystal calorimeter was designed, built and tested in their school and what results their detector achieved in the tests with electrons and muons at CERN.

The Beamline for Schools competition gives high school students an insight into the everyday life of a researcher. Teams are asked to design a particle physics experiment, write a proposal, which is then judged by a scientific committee,and, if successful. prepared and carried out by the students at the CERN Proton Synchrotron. As part of the competition the students are expected to act as CERN physicists,  including undertaking shifts at the experiment day or night, attending crucial meetings and – of course – sharing in the marvelous experience of the CERN campus and its international cafeteria. As one of the team members said “It was an amazing experience that I will never forget! I really hope that I will ever be able to return to CERN! I signed up for a science excellence program, and the first courses are about particle physics. I can’t wait to learn even more about the wonderful world of physics!”

Since 2014, more than 5500 students from all around the world have participated in the competition, a third of them from non-member state countries. On average teams spend around 24 hours developing their ideas for an experiment and preparing their proposals.

The 2017 competition is now open for entries, and you can find out more information and apply here: http://beamline-for-schools.web.cern.ch/ .

We hope that many students follow the advice of Team Beamline from Thailand: “ We want to throw out that lump of a book, kick the classroom door open and go out to see real things.”

Congratulations to Team Dominicuscollege!

Beamline for Schools is a CERN & Society project. To find out more about CERN & Society and how to get involved, go to:  http://cern.ch/giving.   The CERN Beamline for Schools is funded in 2017 in part by the Arconic Foundation; additional contribution is received from the Motorola Solutions Foundation.

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The Beamline for Schools winners experimented at CERN and DESY

24 October, 2023

From 14 to 28 September, the three winning teams of the 2023 edition of the Beamline for Schools competition had the chance to use the test-beam facilities at CERN and DESY to perform their experiments .

The “Myriad Magnets” team from the United States and the “Particular Perspective” team from Pakistan came to CERN, while the “Wire Wizards” team from the Netherlands were invited to go to DESY.

home.cern,Life at CERN

In 2023, Beamline for Schools celebrated its 10th edition. To mark the occasion, CERN and DESY organised a hybrid event attended by representatives of CERN and DESY, the sponsors of the competition, winning students, team coaches and support scientists. Each offered a unique perspective on the various aspects of the competition.

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Beamline for Schools is an education and outreach project funded through the CERN & Society Foundation by individual donors, foundations and companies.

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CERN is famous for the  Large Hadron Collider , but there’s much more to the laboratory than that. A large part of CERN’s research and development is carried out using fixed-target beamlines, which are used for a variety of experiments that range from investigating the inner workings of protons to probing the mysteries of antimatter. As part of the beam line for schools competition, CERN is making a fully equipped beamline available for a team of school students to run an experiment. Physicists, engineers and experts in data acquisition and analysis are offering students guidance. Beam time will be allocated by scientific competition, just as it is allocated for all CERN experiments.

The competition is for teams of high-school students aged 16 and up. Teams can be composed of up to 30 students with at least one adult supervisor, or "coach". Up to nine of the team members and two coaches would come to CERN to run the team's experiments. Proposals will be pre-selected by a committee of CERN scientists, and the shortlist will be sent to the SPSC, the committee that validates all proposals for experiments at the laboratory’s  SPS  and  PS  accelerators.

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Schools competition: Win a beamline

For CERN’s 60th anniversary in 2014, the laboratory is offering a chance to high-school students worldwide to carry out an experiment at CERN

27 November, 2013

By Kate Kahle

Schools competition: Win a beamline

This competition will give a winning school group access to the “T9” Proton Synchrotron beamline (Image: Christoph Rembser/CERN)

What if high-school students could come to CERN for more than just a visit? What if they could come as researchers, conducting real experiments on a CERN proton beamline? Take shifts, have lunch with real researchers, Nobel prize winners even, and experience the ins and outs of taking data at a real accelerator ?

In honour of CERN’s 60 th anniversary in 2014, the laboratory is offering a chance to high-school students worldwide to carry out an experiment at CERN in a "Beamline for Schools" competition.

The competition mirrors the real way that researchers bid for access to the laboratory's unique facilities. Students need to first register by the end of January, then submit a proposal for a research project to be conducted at the beamline by the end of March. From next week, a series of live Hangouts  on CERN’s YouTube channel will answer students’ questions. Follow CERN’s social media channels and the hashtag #bl4s to stay up to date.

The beamline comes fully equipped with an existing set of standard detectors that students can choose from to design their own experiment. Proposals will be judged based on motivation and creativity, and the winning team will have the chance to refine their ideas with researchers before conducting their experiment at CERN. They will then spend one week at CERN for their experiment, with the unique opportunity to join the accelerator operators in the control room and steer the beam to their experiment. The results are supposed to be summarised in a document, and – who knows? – maybe published in a scientific paper.

More about the competition and how to register

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St. Gallen Symposium Global Essay Competition 2024 (CHF 20,000 prize)

cern essay competition

Deadline: February 1, 2024

Applications are open for the St. Gallen Symposium Global Essay Competition 2024 . Compete in the Global Essay Competition and qualify for participation as a Leader of Tomorrow in the world’s premier opportunity for cross-generational debates: The St. Gallen Symposium.

Meet 300 of society’s brightest young minds. Present and debate your ideas with 600 senior leaders. Be inspired by some of the world’s most impressive speakers. Gain a unique and new perspective on this year’s topic. Become a member of a unique global community. Participate in the symposium.

Topic Question : Striving for more or thriving with less – What pressing scarcity do you see, and how do you suggest to tackle it?

Scarcity generally refers to a situation where human needs exceed available resources. This year’s Global Essay Competition invites young leaders worldwide to focus on a specific contemporary or future challenge related to scarcity and propose an innovative way to address it.

Be creative in thinking about proposed solutions: do we need to strive for more and find ways to boost the availability of the resource in question? Or does it focus on ways to thrive with less and thus rethink our needs and demand?

Be free in choosing which scarce resource you focus on: examples include – but are NOT limited to – human labour, capital, natural resources, or intangibles like time, creativity, or care. Be bold and precise in describing a contemporary or future challenge of scarcity and the specific kind of resources you focus on and offer a concrete and actionable idea of how we should confront it.

  • Win prize money of CHF 20,000 split amongst the three winners.

Eligibility

  • Be enrolled in a graduate or postgraduate programme (master level or higher) in any field of study at a regular university;
  • Born in 1994 or later.

Selection Criteria

For your contribution to be valid, the following criteria must be met:

  • Be in Essay form (max. 2,100 words, excl. abstract, bibliography, and footnotes)
  • Your name, e-mail address, university, or any identifying details must not be mentioned anywhere in the contribution file.
  • Individual work expected, no group work allowed. The essay must be written exclusively for this contest. The idea must be the author’s own.
  • All sources must be cited and referred to the respective part in the essay. All contributions will be tested for plagiarism.
  • Acceptable language is English.

Application

Make sure you can provide the following documents:

  • Copy of passport or other identification (in English for non-Roman languages).
  • Confirmation of matriculation/enrolment from your university which proves your enrollment in a graduate/postgraduate level programme as of February 1, 2023 (download sample document here ).
  • Your contribution file with no indication of your name in the file name, the file metadata or the file itself.

Click here to register

For more information, visit Global Essay Competition .

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Jude Ogar is an educator and youth development practitioner with years of experience working in the education and youth development space. He is passionate about the development of youth in Africa.

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Global Essay Competition 2024

  • Deadline February 1, 2024
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cern essay competition

Call for essays for the Global Essay Competition 2024 are open now!

Participate in the Global Essay Competition to earn a spot as a Leader of Tomorrow at The St. Gallen Symposium, the world’s most prestigious forum for intergenerational discussion. Meet the 300 most intelligent young people in society. Discuss and present your ideas to 600 high-level executives. Take inspiration from some of the most remarkable speakers on the planet. Discover a fresh and original viewpoint on this year’s theme. Join a distinctive international community and take part in the symposium.

Topic Question: Striving for more or thriving with less – What pressing scarcity do you see, and how do you suggest to tackle it?

In general, scarcity describes a state in which the demands of people outweigh the resources at hand. Young leaders from all over the world are invited to submit original ideas for solving specific scarcity-related problems in the form of essays for this year’s Global Essay Competition. Be creative in thinking about proposed solutions: do we need to  strive for more   and find ways to boost the availability of the resource in question? Or does it focus on ways to   thrive with less  and thus rethink our needs and demand?

Choose freely which limited resource to concentrate on: Examples comprise labour from human beings, money, natural resources, and intangibles like time, creativity, and care, among others. When discussing a current or potential resource scarcity issue, be clear and concise in identifying the particular kind of resources you are focusing on, and provide a practical solution.

Group work is not permitted; individual labour is required. The essay needs to be composed specifically for this competition. It has to be the author’s original concept. Essay length limit: 2,100 words, excluding the abstract, reference list, and footnotes. Language: English. Every source needs to be referenced and cited in the essay’s appropriate section. Every submission will be examined for plagiarism. Each year, the panel chooses three winning essays from among the roughly 1,000 entries that graduate and post-graduate students from all over the world submit each year. You can checkout the previous victors of the competition and peruse their submissions.

  • Prize money of CHF 20,000 split amongst the three winners.
  • Chance to participate as a Leader of Tomorrow in the world’s premier opportunity for cross-generational debates: The St. Gallen Symposium.

Eligibilities

  • Enrolled in a graduate or postgraduate programme (master level or higher) in any field of study at a regular university
  • Born in 1994 or later

Application Process

  • Visit the apply link by clicking on the “APPLY NOW” button.
  • Create your account and fill the application.

Make sure you can provide the following documents:

  • Copy of passport or other identification (in English for non-Roman languages)
  • Confirmation of matriculation/enrolment from your university which proves your enrolment in a graduate/postgraduate level programme as of 1 February 2024 (download sample document from the official website)
  • Your contribution file with no indication of your name in the file name, the file metadata or the file itself

Application Deadline: February 1, 2024

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CERN Technical Student Program 2024, Switzerland (Fully Funded)

Imagine Working and waking up in a beautiful country in Europe, Switzerland. The applications are open to apply for the CERN Technical Student Program 2024 , Switzerland. If you are an Undergraduate student or Master’s Student in STEM-related fields then there’s no better Internship other than the CERN Technical studentship program. Each year the panel selects 80 students for the Fully Funded Internship .

IELTS is not required. The CERN will cover all the expenses such as Travel , accommodation , Stipend , Visa Assistance, and Family Allowance. If you are motivated and interested in spending 4-12 months at CERN. Then apply for the CERN Technical Student Program 2024. More details and the application process are given below.

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Details About CERN Technical Student Program 2024, Switzerland

  • Host Country : Switzerland
  • Organization Name:  CERN
  • Program Name : CERN Technical Student Programme
  • Financial Benefits : Fully Funded
  • No. of Participants : Cern will select 80 students/year
  • Deadline : 11th March 2024

Also Check:  CERN Summer Student Program 2024, Switzerland (Fully Funded)

CERN Technical Student Program Fields

Categories : Applied Physics, Engineering, or Computing.

Sub Categories : Any of the following disciplines: Applied physics, electrical or electronics engineering, general or civil engineering, IT, mathematics, robotics, material and surface science, mechanical engineering.

Note : If you are looking for Administrative related fields then apply for the  CERN Administrative Student Program 2024

Financial Benefits

CERN will provide the following benefits:

  • A Contract of 4 to 12 months .
  • An Allowance of 3407 Swiss Francs per month (net of tax) .
  • A Travel Allowance (Economy Class Air Tickets)
  • Depending on your circumstances, a supplement if you are married and/or have children.
  • Health Insurance Scheme
  • 2,5 days of paid leave per month.

Selection Timeline

A panel of CERN experts meets three times a year in February, June, and October, and on each occasion, typically 80 students are selected to join the program.

Eligibility Criteria for the CERN Technical Student Program

  • A national of a CERN Member or Associate Member State
  • Have completed at least 18 months of your undergraduate studies (Bachelor’s or Master’s)
  • You must remain registered as a full-time student during the internship at CERN.
  • You have a  good knowledge of English and French .
  • Proof of English Language Test is not required.

Required Documents

  • Most recent academic transcript 
  • A reference letter from your University Professor is mandatory

The reference letter needs to be uploaded by the candidates while completing the application.

Tips by CERN

Prepare your answers in MS Word or Notepad in advance , as once you complete the application, you have a limited time to submit it.

Also Check:  How to Spend a Fully Funded Summer in Switzerland in 2024

Application Timeline

  • Announcement of Selected Students : Mid-June 2024

How to Apply for the CERN Technical Student Programme 2024?

The Application Process is online. The Link to the CERN Technical Programme website is given below.

VISIT HERE TO APPLY FOR CERN TECHNICAL PROGRAMME

More Programs for students in Switzerland:

  • UNIL Summer Research Program 2024, Switzerland (Fully Funded)
  • EPFL Life Sciences Summer Research Program 2024, Switzerland (Fully Funded)
  • EPFL Summer Fellowship 2024 in Switzerland (Fully Funded)

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Temple Christian student wins Veterans of Foreign Wars Patriot's Pen US essay contest

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Bryant Day, an eighth-grade student at Temple Christian in Mansfield, has been selected the national first-place winner and recipient of a $5,000 award in the Veterans of Foreign Wars 2023-2024 Patriot’s Pen essay contest.

Day, who lives in Ashland, is the son of Raymond and Jessica Day.

Day, 13, was sponsored by VFW Post 9943 and its Auxiliary in Mansfield. He wrote his winning essay based on this year’s theme, “How Are You Inspired by America?”

'All these words are hard': Olivia Strassell of Lucas wins Richland County Spelling Bee

As the national first-place winner, Day was presented with his award at the VFW Washington Conference during the Parade of Winners award ceremony in Washington, D.C., where  he delivered his winning essay  before conference attendees.

Day's mother on Wednesday said the entire family including Bryant's sister Evelyn, a senior at Temple Christian School, were flown to Washington D.C. by the VFW.

"The English teachers at Mansfield Temple Christian have students write an essay each year and they submit them to the VFW," she said. She said in addition to her son's $5,000 national scholarship, he won a $2,000 scholarship at the state level competition.

"It's been an amazing experience," Jessica Day said. The family visited numerous sites including the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the International Spy Museum, the Smithsonian Institution and its National Air and Space Museum, Mount Vernon, Arlington National Cemetery and the White House.

Superintendent Rob Kurtz said Bryant is a great young man from a fantastic family.

"I'd like to say a special thanks to all the teachers who have worked with Bryant and honed his English writing skills," Kurtz said.

More: Shelby Middle School students win statewide STEM competition, $12K technology package

VFW's Patriot Pen essay competition

Since its inception nearly 30 years ago, the VFW’s Patriot’s Pen essay competition has helped foster patriotism by encouraging young minds to examine our nation’s history along with their own experiences in modern American society while improving their writing skills.

Open to eligible sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students, the competition requires students to submit a 300- to 400-word essay expressing their views on a selected theme while competing for their share of nearly $1 million in awards and prizes.

Nearly 55,800 students participated this year. Day competed at the national level against 53 other state finalists vying for individual awards ranging from $500 to $5,000. The VFW awarded more than $55,000 in national awards .

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Guest Essay

We’re Not Asking the Most Important Questions About Age

A brightly colored illustration of a multilane two-way expressway busy with older people riding in motorized wheelchairs headed both ways.

By James Chappel

Mr. Chappel is the author of the forthcoming book “Golden Years: How Americans Invented and Reinvented Old Age.”

After President Biden delivers his third State of the Union address on Thursday, much of the analysis will focus on the apparent signs of the president’s age. How alert does he seem? How spry? Does he look up to the task of running for office, or of governing? Questions like these certainly matter, but they are not the only ones we should be asking about age and aging right now. They are not even the most important.

As a historian who studies aging in America, I see this presidential contest as an opportunity for us to change the national conversation on aging. Right now, the mainstream discussion has focused on the capacities of two individuals, presuming throughout that old age is a problem and that the natural signs of aging are deplorable weaknesses. The problem is not that such a conversation is ageist — although it often is — but that it threatens to once again become the only one we have about aging in this election cycle. It stands in the way of the conversation that matters more: How can we ensure that older Americans, many of whom are vulnerable and precarious, are able to live healthier, happier and more dignified lives?

In a way, the persistent debate about Mr. Biden’s age represents a mass delusion that we are still a nation of the young. We have always liked to think of ourselves as the prototypical country of youth: a nation of plucky strivers, distinguished from the old country by our restless, creative spirit. Such a nation, we might think, ought to be led by someone young, or at least young at heart. Maybe this was even true, once. But it’s not anymore.

The age of the American president has gone up and down over time, but the age of the American public has not: We get older as a nation every year. The 2020 census showed that, between 2010 and 2020, the number of people over 65 shot up from 40 million to 56 million; this population grew five times as fast as the overall population, in a decade when the size of the under-18 population actually shrunk. It’s worth noting that the older population is also growing more ethnically diverse every year, as those who arrived as young people in the wake of the 1965 immigration reform head into their golden years.

Our political discussion should reflect this reality. Mr. Biden recognizes this.

Another way to look at Biden’s age

Median age in the United States

When President Biden was elected in 2020, he became the oldest person to step into the office.

But since the country’s founding, the American population also grew much older. The median age in America more than doubled since 1801.

In fact, relative to the age of the population, President Biden is no older than the country’s first presidents.

Source: Pew Research Center, Census and U.N.

In his previous State of the Union address, Mr. Biden devoted a fair amount of attention to old-age politics: Social Security and Medicare, of course, but he also called for an expansion of in-home health care services for older people. It is easy to dismiss this as pandering to an interest group that tends to vote. But it’s more than that: Old-age policies affect everyone. Affordable home health care aides, for instance, would primarily benefit the millions of middle-aged people, mainly women, who are currently doing most of the nation’s elder care for free. So when Mr. Biden talks about old age policy, as he likely will, he is laying out his plan to address one of the most important long-term trends challenging the nation.

Millions of older Americans rely on Social Security to stay out of poverty. The system, though, is set to become insolvent in about a decade — a looming disaster that is eminently solvable. (Passing the bill known as Social Security 2100, which has 183 co-sponsors in the House, into law would be a good start.) Even Social Security is little help for older Americans once they become disabled and need long-term care.

As the bitter experience of millions of families attests, the “system” for such care is in crisis. We need, therefore, a vast expansion in public support for home health care and for nursing home care, both of which are often paid for out of pocket. For both of these, too, we need better regulatory oversight and better labor protections for care workers. There is no avoiding the fact that long-term care will be a massive component of the 21st-century economy. We have a political decision to make: Will this remain in the shadows, with underpaid workers and poor conditions? Or will this become, as it ought to be, a glittering centerpiece of our new old country?

Politicians and the media used to recognize the centrality of old-age policy. When researching the history of old age politics, I was struck by how widespread and sophisticated the discussion has normally been. In the late 19th century, Americans advocated pensions for Civil War veterans; in the early 20th century, many argued that the formerly enslaved deserved pensions, too. Those discussions were alive to the ways that mass warfare and chattel slavery had marred the lives of older Americans, and how the state might help.

Between 1935 and 1975, old-age security was arguably, next to military might, the central preoccupation of American policy. The passage of the Social Security Act (1935) and the Medicare and Medicaid Act (1965) are just the two most famous examples. Every year, legislation streamed from Washington that addressed problems in housing, nutrition and care for older people. Some of it was good, some of it was bad, but together that flood of legislation created an admirable safety net for American seniors. And throughout, this safety net benefited Americans of all ages . One of the most important aims of Social Security, after all, was to free older people from dependence on their children.

Since 1975, that flood of legislation has slowed to a trickle and the national conversation about those issues has more or less ceased. It’s not that we’ve ceased talking about old age — we talk about it constantly, as we are now. But those conversations have focused on well-off older people, like Donald Trump and Mr. Biden, and on their place in culture, society and politics. From AARP to “The Golden Girls ,” the American reckoning with age has been, by and large, a reckoning with age for the relatively privileged and able-bodied. The more important issues have been largely unaddressed.

The old-age lobby is not as powerful as many believe — even the mighty AARP has supported many failed initiatives, including an effort in 1988 to provide federally subsidized long-term care insurance. Social Security has not been meaningfully reformed in my lifetime; its last major change was voted into law in March 1983, a few weeks before I was born. There have been various efforts to reform a nursing home system that is, by all accounts, in disastrous shape, and to improve labor conditions for home health care workers. Those, too, have come to little, and many of the regulations that were passed have not been enforced.

Today, as we continue to have familiar discussions about old age and the so-called gerontocracy, older people are being buffeted by new challenges. Climate change, for instance: Older people are disproportionately affected by the storms, wildfires and electricity shortages that accompany our warming planet. The Covid-19 pandemic is another painful example. More than half of those killed by Covid-19 in the first three years of the pandemic were over the age of 75; three-quarters were over the age of 65. Nursing homes especially became death traps. More than one-fifth of Covid-19 deaths took place among residents or staff of nursing homes, a group that comprises less than one percent of the population.

There is a serious conversation to be had about aging. It’s about how we can, as a country, prepare for a century of pandemics, heat waves and hurricanes, and how we can provide humane care to millions of frail older people, many of them people of color who have suffered a lifetime of disenfranchisement. Every word that we use to analyze gaffes or provide armchair diagnoses is a word that is not being used on them. We can do better. More than ever before, demographically speaking, we are a nation of grown-ups. It’s time to start acting like it.

James Chappel is a professor of history at Duke University, a senior fellow at the Duke Aging Center, and the author of the forthcoming “ Golden Years: How Americans Invented and Reinvented Old Age .”

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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A Fremont writer has won a Martin Luther King Jr. Essay Contest 6 times. He's 12 years old.

Grandparents emphasize how education is key to martin's success.

FREMONT ― A six-time winner of the Martin Luther King Jr. Essay Contest, plus the 2019 Martin Luther King Jr. Oratorial Contest, Jeriah Martin plans to continue his education and play sports in the future.

Jeriah, 12, of Fremont, enters an essay or writing contest annually and in 2023 he wrote one centered on racism and how it is experienced.

"The difference between you and me is only on the outside; we all have the same features inside ― brains, hearts, and bones," Jeriah wrote. "I can’t control the color of my skin any more than you can. We were born that way.”

Jeriah has been competing in contests since kindergarten

Jeriah, who attends Fremont Middle School, has been entering these contests since he was in kindergarten thanks to his grandmother, Stephanie Martin.

“Since he was small his always been smart, memorizing his speeches for church and performing well,” she said. “Now you just read them off the paper that you wrote it on, but he does good in his speeches.”

The Martin Luther King Jr. Art, Essay and Multimedia contest is intended to encourage students to reflect upon King’s life, philosophy and impact on the Civil Rights Movement and present-day America.

Ages 6 to 12 are invited to enter. The contest can hand outt plaques, awards, certificates and gift cards. 

More: MLK Jr. breakfast draws strong crowd in Fremont

Jeriah's family emphasizes education

“I like history; I like to learn about it; and I like social studies too,” Jeriah said. “I try to get good grades and have three As and three Bs, and need to improve on those Bs. I also intend on writing the essay and improving on them.”

James Martin, Jeriah's grandfather, whom he calls Pawpaw, said, “Education is the key, and I educated them on Black History, and I am proud of him — his still going down the same path through education, focused on both education and his sports.”

In 2017, 2018, and 2019, Jeriah placed first place in the Martin Luther King Oratorical Contest. Jeriah plans to continue writing the essay until high school.

James Martin said, “Principal Joshua Matz of Otis is one person he also looks up to.” Matz gives out the MLK awards at the Black History Month breakfast each year.

Each one of Jeriah’s family members independently owns their business in Fremont and Clyde. Jianna Martin Jeriah’s sister, age 6, is already involved in cheerleading.

To enter, or for information about the MLK essay contest, visit civ.ohio.gov/news-and-events/mlk-contest .

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