Friday Flyer - April 29, 2016
Spotlight on the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab QuarkNet Center: This center held its ninth "Physics in and through Cosmology" five-day workshop last June at LBNL. Ten teachers and 42 high school students participated in this workshop that consisted of a combination of hands-on activities (including work with ATLAS data and cosmic ray muon detectors), tours, and talks on a variety of topics such as general relativity, the ATLAS detector, and mapping the universe. One student participant commented, "I like everything about the workshop because I get to learn about the universe, meet new people, learn science from many professionals, visit laboratories, have fun, and get fed." What more could you ask for?!
News from QuarkNet Central: Summer workshop plans at centers are starting to fall into place. We are still collecting information on summer activities, particularly dates of your meetings and possible QuarkNet Data and e-Lab workshops you might want to bring in; check out the possibilities. Send your information and queries to your QuarkNet contact or to any staff member. Could more teachers at your center use a cosmic ray muon detector? We can help with those requests too.
Physics Experiment Roundup: Fermilab's Main Injector is back up and running after a transformer fire last weekend. At CERN, things are going well as the LHC recommissioning draws to a close. Back at Fermilab, ANNIE (Accelerator Neutrino-Neutron Interaction Experiment) began taking data on 15 April.
Resources: This TechCrunch article gives a shout-out to masterclasses as it describes CERN's recent release of 300 TB of LHC data. What's one of the hottest jobs in physics these days? Two words: accelerator scientist! Speaking of scientists . . . click here to meet some very interesting Fermilab scientists. One of those featured scientists, Don Lincoln, writes about bringing dark matter to Earth. Lastly, little in this world—including science—is clear-cut. This Wired article suggests that the only path to real understanding involves confusion.
Just for Fun: It's that time of year again . . . whether it's formative, summative, chapter, unit, AP, IB, state, or final . . . testing season is here. Looking for a way to cut down on cheating while finding a use for that dusty old green board in the front of your classroom? Try this teacher anti-cheat technique when you give your next test!
QuarkNet Staff:
Mark Adams: adams@fnal.gov
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu