Eligibility of Others

For prospective participants who are not currently enrolled in high school, we ask that you follow these guidelines.

Younger students

The lectures are aimed at high school students. Middle school students, and younger, are encouraged to wait until they reach high school before signing up for and attending Saturday Morning Physics.

Furthermore, people under the age of 16 cannot go on many of the tours.

Siblings of SMP students should not attend the lectures (except the last week of the term).

Adults

Saturday Morning Physics is for high school students. Provided they follow these rules and guidelines, parents and other adults may sit in on the lectures.

  1. Registered students must each have a seat first.
    • If there is space, adults should sit towards the back and the sides of the lecture hall.
  2. Only registered students may ask questions during the lecture. If you have a question, please ask it outside of the lecture room.
    • The venue belongs to the students. We want to have a safe environment where students can freely ask questions.
    • We have had adults get enthusiastic and dominate the questioning on a couple of occasions; we feel that this scenario intimidates students and discourages them from actively participating in the discussion.
  3. Please refrain from using your laptop computer in the lecture hall, as it could be distracting to students.

All adults should check with the SMP receptionist on Saturday morning to see if they may attend the lecture that day. They do not need to register.

Tours cannot accommodate extra participants. Adults should not assume that they may join the tours; check with the program director (Duarte or Ramson) to see if today’s tour can accept extra participants. Please respect the guidelines, above, when on the tour.

Fermilab offers public tours each week. Also, the Ask-a-Scientist program is available to you.

We encourage and welcome parents and siblings to attend SMP on graduation day. We have a parallel question-and-answer session for parents (usually in Curia II). Siblings may attend either the Q&A or the final lecture (space permitting).

Teachers

High school teachers are welcome to attend, but we ask that they respect the guidelines for adults. SMP leaders are especially eager to hear, and to answer, your questions outside the lecture hall.

Additionally, Fermilab offers many programs for you.