With the recent discovery of a new particle at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) the Higgs boson could be about to be discovered. This paper provides a brief summary of the standard model of particle physics and the importance of the Higgs boson and field in that model for non-specialists. The role of Feynman diagrams in making predictions for interactions via the electromagnetic, strong and weak forces is also discussed. Finally, an educational tool (Minerva), which provides access to LHC collision data from the ATLAS experiment, is briefly described. (Contains 7 figures.)