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.