Friday Flyer - January 12, 2024

Spotlight on AAPT WM24 in New Orleans 

The American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) Winter Meeting 2024 took place in New Orleans January 6-9, and QuarkNet was once again well-represented. On Friday before the conference, Ken and Shane continued a tradition of doing QuarkNet activities with students at a school near the conference. This year, they visited four of Ms. Lauren Caffarelli's Algebra 2 classes at Academy of Our Lady in New Orleans where they focused on the mathematics of exponential decay. During each class, students learned about muons, cosmic rays, particle half-life and lifetime. (Here are a few students analyzing muon events from the MINERvA detector, and here is Ken demonstrating how to use cosmic watches.) On Saturday, Ken and Shane led a half-day LHC In the Classroom workshop that was attended by a mix of high school, two-year college, and university educators. QuarkNet staff, fellows, and high school students gave talks and poster presentations at several sessions as well. Mark presented High Energy Physics Experiments in Classroom and Beyond, Ken presented The Cosmic Watch in the Classroom, and Cosmic fellow Nathan Unterman presented Local Sites for Cosmic Ray Experiments. Four high school students from Illinois (pictured below) presented both posters and talks on their cosmic ray research. Their poster Looking for the Cosmic Ray Moon Shadow tied for second place in their poster session. Congratulations for a job well-done! QuarkNetters were active in AAPT committee meetings as well, including the Contemporary Physics Committee and the High School Committee. The Winter Meeting was a great place to network, share ideas, learn new strategies, catch up with old friends, make some new ones, and to try some local treats!

Looking ahead, the 2024 AAPT Summer Meeting will take place in Boston on July 6-10; consider submitting an abstract to give a talk or poster. Hope to see you there!

News from QuarkNet Central

CERN Summer Programs 2024: QuarkNet teachers are invited to apply for CERN Summer Programs 2024! The two international programs are: High School Teachers (HST, June 30-July 13) and International Teacher Weeks (ITW, August 4-17). We can place four QuarkNet teachers in each of these programs with travel, subsistence, and a stipend all paid, thanks to the University of Michigan RET program. To apply, fill out this form and have a recommendation sent to Ken's email. The deadline is January 19. 

Beamline for Schools 2024: The Beamline for Schools (BL4S) 2024 competition is now open for high school teams to compete for the chance to perform an experiment at CERN or DESY. Learn more: Read the announcement from CERN!

International Masterclasses: Has your center registered for International Masterclasses yet? It is not too late! The number of available slots will decrease soon, so now is a good time to check out the Fermilab masterclass videoconference schedule, pick an open date or time, and send an email to Ken or Shane. Want more information? Read the latest circular. 

Fermilab's 2024 Saturday Morning Physics Program: Registration for the spring 2024 session of Fermilab’s Saturday Morning Physics program for high school students is now open. The eleven-course program, which begins on January 27, will be held on site at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois. Two special classes are in the works with locations to be announced. A virtual option will also be available. Please click here for the detailed announcement and to register. 

Harvard PolS-T 2024 HS Physics Educator Talk Series: This free virtual event will take place on January 27 from 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM EST. Join to hear 2022 PhysTEC Teacher of the Year Danielle Bugge give a talk called Thinking (and Failing) Like a Scientist: Cultivating Growth Mindsets of High School Physics Learners. For more information and to register, go to this form. (H/T Veronica Monte)

Reminder: The Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP) will be hosting their 2024 Teachers' Conference in Santa Barbara, CA, on Saturday, April 7, 2024. This year's topic is "Supermassive Black Holes and their Destructive Tidal Forces." Registration is now open. Note that KITP has financial aid for travel and lodging that is awarded on a rolling basis.

Physics Experiment Roundup

We'll begin the roundup by looking back at 2023, with a video that provides a quick recap of some of Fermilab's 2023 milestones and an article/video with highlights from CERN in 2023. APS Physics editors pick their favorite stories from 2023, and Quanta Magazine provides a 2023 in review, The Year in Physics. From Interesting Engineering, the top innovation stories of 2023. Time provides their list of the best inventions of 2023. 

Symmetry brings us an article on an ATLAS measurement of quantum entanglement and supernova results from the Dark Energy Survey collaboration.  

An update from the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in South Dakota: Massive caverns for DUNE nearly excavated. 

Resources

Kristy Duffy brings us an Even Bananas video considering if neutrinos could be their own anti-matter particle. From Don Lincoln: a video on the search for sterile neutrinos at Fermilab and an article in Big Think addressing the question, "What Does the Center of a Black Hole Look Like?"

The January 2024 issue of The Physics Teacher is available, including free articles like one on "telling the story" from the Using Math in Physics series and another on measuring the speed of light. 

From Symmetry: teaching STEM with a science-fiction story-based class and "Bringing Eclipsed Women of Astronomy and Physics Into the Light."

Just for Fun

Sit back and watch highlights of cellist Yo-Yo Ma's spoken and musical conversation with CERN Director-General Fabiola Gianotti. (Scroll down on the page to click on and play the YouTube video.)

We'll end with some xkcd, including a look at happiness vs. distance from a supernova, advice on treatment for fevers of varying degrees, and something about supersymmetry. 

Having fun yet? Definitely! (Or "definately"? Or...)

QuarkNet Staff
Mark Adams: adams@fnal.gov  
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Spencer Pasero: spasero@fnal.gov 
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu 

Additional Contacts