Friday Flyer/News
Submitted by kcecire
on Wednesday, September 13, 2017 - 12:53
Friday Flyer - September 22, 2017
Spotlight on: the University at Buffalo QuarkNet Center
This center held its 11th annual summer workshop for teachers this August, with six teachers in attendance. Professors Ia Iashvili and Avto Kharchilava organized the three-day workshop, beginning with a day of updates from LIGO and the LHC, followed by a two-day CMS e-Lab workshop. Teachers worked through several Data Portfolio activities, learned how the CMS detector works, then analyzed data using the new and improved CMS e-Lab. In addition to the summer workshop, the Buffalo center hosted local students last spring for the CMS masterclass.
Friday Flyer - September 15, 2017
Welcome to our new QuarkNet website and to the first Friday Flyer of the new academic year!
Friday Flyer - May 26, 2017
This is the last Friday Flyer of the 2016–17 academic year. We will pick it up again in September 2017. Have a great summer!
Spotlight on Summer 2017: Want it promised to be a big summer for QuarkNet? Centers will do just about every sort of data-based workshop we offer (check out the schedule), and it is still possible to schedule more (e-mail a staff member). The crescendo will come in August: first with a test run of the new MINERvA masterclass at Fermilab in connection with the DPF meeting, and then with the Solar Eclipse Cosmic Ray Project.
News from QuarkNet Central: Is your cosmic ray detector in need of some repair? Now is the time to get your detector up and running in preparation for summer workshops and for this summer's Solar Eclipse Cosmic Ray Project. Contact Dave Hoppert or Mark Adams to get the repair process going. Do this soon to beat the rush!
Physics Experiment Roundup: The LHC is ready to start a new season: it is running and should be up to full luminosity in a few weeks. Bubble chambers are back with one going strong in the PICO dark matter experiment at Fermilab. The MINERvA neutrino experiment—soon to feature in a masterclass!—finds some complications in the weak interaction between neutrinos and nucleons.
Resources: We are all about LHC 2017 with short videos: one a 2π panorama from BBC and the other a take on how the LHC works. And to get going for the eclipse this August, watch this video from UA Little Rock.
Just for Fun: xkcd, xkcd, and xkcd. And for a little geekdom, a modernized trailer and, even better, a classicized trailer for The Empire Strikes Back.
QuarkNet Staff:
Mark Adams: adams@fnal.gov
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu
National Workshop opportunities for QuarkNet Centers
Small URL for this page: http://tinyurl.com/qnws24
QuarkNet offers a variety of opportunities for professional development of QuarkNet teachers at centers. Most are facilitated by staff or fellows who come to the center to work with teachers. The table below summarizes what is currently available. Note that all workshops can be lengthened, shortened, or combined to accommodate the needs of the center.
Friday Flyer - May 19, 2017
Spotlight on the Cosmic Ray e-Lab: Want to have your class collect data on cosmic particles from supernovae using high-energy physics detectors? Try the Cosmic Ray e-Lab where students and teachers all over the world collect data on muons they observe that have been created in high-energy cosmic ray air showers. Students develop experiments and can measure the muon lifetime, speed of muons, and muon rates, as well as distributions in time and space of showers of multiple muons. Students can create an online poster in the e-Lab that they can submit in the QuarkNet e-Lab Poster Challenge!
News from QuarkNet Central: Is your cosmic ray detector in need of some repair? Now is the time to get your detector up and running in preparation for summer workshops and for this summer's Solar Eclipse Cosmic Ray Project. Contact Dave Hoppert or Mark Adams to get the repair process going. Do this soon to beat the rush!
Physics Experiment Roundup: The LHC recently saw its first collisions of 2017; check out the update here. Learn about a new ATLAS precision measurement of the Higgs boson. Searching for WIMP dark matter, the XENON1T releases its first result.
Resources: "Just the facts, ma'am." A symmetry article discusses how scientists try to stick to the facts and not expectations in their results. Yale theoretical astrophysicist Priya Natarajan gives a lecture at Fermilab on our ever-evolving cosmic view.
Just for Fun: No plans yet for Saturday night? Here's an idea . . . check out the Standard Model equation, deconstructed!
QuarkNet Staff:
Mark Adams: adams@fnal.gov
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu
Friday Flyer - May 12, 2017
Spotlight on the University of Illinois at Chicago and Chicago State University Quarknet Center: Perhaps UIC-Chicago State is the only center in which one of the mentors, in this case Mark Adams, is also a member of the QuarkNet staff. Mark took over the QuarkNet cosmic ray project when Bob Peterson retired and was, even before that, instrumental in QuarkNet cosmic ray efforts. It is no surprise, then, that UIC-Chicago State is oriented toward cosmic ray studies. Mark, Edmundo Garcia, and the teachers had a robust cosmic workshop last summer in which they explored new measurements and met for a day in the academic year to follow up. One of them, cosmic fellow Nate Unterman, proposed and is working on the Solar Eclipse Cosmic Ray Project, and there is little doubt that this Chicago-based center will play a role.
News from QuarkNet Central: AP Physics is done for the year, and IB Physics will be soon. Now is the time to get your students going on QuarkNet's first-ever e-Lab Poster Challenge, which ends at the end of this month. Don't have an account? Send a request to Mark, Shane, or Ken; include your name, e-mail, school, city, and state or country. And if you are planning to study any effect of the total eclipse of the sun this August, be sure to contact Mark Adams to collaborate with your QuarkNet colleagues.
Physics Experiment Roundup: The LHC got up and running just two weeks ago. Now, here is the play-by-play from CERN, which, by the way, just completed a new linac. Getting esoteric: Particles have wavelengths and wavelengths can be redshifted or blueshifted, so maybe we can measure spacetime effects on the wavelengths of particles. According to APS Physics, it's been done.
Resources: What are "sterile neutrinos" and do they exist? Maybe not, according the the Daya Bay experiment. Yet the idea is compelling, as seen in Don Lincoln's spin on the subject. Then Mike Albrow discusses more that we cannot see. And what do the folks behind PhD Comics say about all this? According to symmetry, We Have No Idea.
Just for Fun: Ketchup. It's science. Rap. It's about CERN.
QuarkNet Staff:
Mark Adams: adams@fnal.gov
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu
Friday Flyer - May 12, 2017
Spotlight on Something: Perhaps this part will be interesting. It should be.
News from QuarkNet Central: News this week will be different from last week.
Friday Flyer - May 5, 2017
Spotlight on the LIGO e-Lab: Perhaps you have some time after AP, IB, or state testing for your students to explore a topic that relates to or extends beyond your curriculum. Consider utilizing a Cosmic Ray, CMS, or the LIGO e-Lab to structure this exploration. Gravitational waves produce only extremely small vibrations in the interferometer arms of the LIGO detectors in Louisiana and Washington State, so it is important to isolate out these seismic background vibrations. The detectors used to measure the seismic background generate the data in the LIGO e-Lab that students can use to study wave propagation, earthquakes, and even simple x = vt problems. Students can create an online poster in the e-Lab that they can submit in the QuarkNet e-Lab Poster Challenge! Contact Ken or Shane with any questions.
News from QuarkNet Central: News this week consists of a reminder for this spring (e-Lab poster challenge) and this summer (cosmic ray eclipse project):
QuarkNet's first-ever e-Lab Poster Challenge takes place this month. Encourage your students to do meaningful studies and make posters in the Cosmic Ray e-Lab, the CMS e-Lab, or the LIGO e-Lab between now and the end of May. On June 1, the QuarkNet staff will look at all the posters registered in the competition and choose 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners, judged based on the rubrics found in the e-Labs, the science, and how interesting it is. Prizes and certificates will be awarded accordingly. For more information, go to the QuarkNet e-Lab Poster Challenge web page.
This summer, QuarkNet has a new cosmic ray project to measure muon rates during the upcoming solar eclipse on August 21 that may be of interest to teachers and students. Contact Mark Adams if you have questions or if you'd like to participate.
Physics Experiment Roundup: The LHC starts up again after a 17-week-long technical stop. CERN's CAST experiment announces results demonstrating how "no evidence" can be informative and serves as a reference point. Recent findings from the Fermi LAT collaboration indicates that the mysterious gamma-ray glow at the center of the Milky Way is likely not caused by dark matter.
Resources: Learn about Galileo, Faraday, and 18 other physicists who revolutionized our understanding of the world, according to Business Insider. Read about how dark matter became a particle in this article from the CERN Courier. And finally, Neil deGrasse Tyson on why dark matter matters.
Just for Fun: On the Laws of Physics, courtesy of xkcd
QuarkNet Staff:
Mark Adams: adams@fnal.gov
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu
Friday Flyer - April 28, 2017
Spotlight on Teaching and Learning Fellows: The Teaching and Learning fellows work on two important QuarkNet missions: promoting the professional development of QuarkNet teachers through the annual Data Camp, held for a week each summer at Fermilab, and through the development of new QuarkNet student activities for the Data Portfolio. Data Camp is the most successful and longest-lived QuarkNet workshop. An evolution from the Lead Teacher Institutes and QuarkNet Boot Camp that came before it, Data Camp incorporates both the deep dive into CMS data that is its hallmark and teacher exploration of activities from the Data Portfolio, as well as the excitement of Fermilab. This year, Data Camp runs July 16–21. If you haven't been, you should; talk with your QuarkNet mentor.
And Jeremy Smith, Jodi Hansen, Gerard Gagnon, Adam LaMee, and Deborah Roudebush, take a bow for all you do.
News from QuarkNet Central: A tale of two seasons starts with a new event this spring: the first-ever QuarkNet e-Lab Poster Challenge! Encourage your students to do meaningful studies and make posters in the Cosmic Ray e-Lab, the CMS e-Lab, or the LIGO e-Lab between now and the end of May. On June 1, the QuarkNet staff will look at all the posters registered in the competition and choose 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners, judged based on the rubrics found in the e-Labs, the science, and how interesting it is. Prizes and certificates will be awarded accordingly. For more information, go to the QuarkNet e-Lab Poster Challenge web page.
This summer, QuarkNet has a new cosmic ray project to measure muon rates during the upcoming solar eclipse on August 21 that may be of interest to teachers and students. Contact Mark Adams if you have questions or if you'd like to participate.
Speaking of summer, did we mention Data Camp July 16–21 and how you should talk with your mentor? We did? Good.
Physics Experiment Roundup: The ALICE experiment at the LHC has found something unexpected in proton-proton collisions. Follow the mystery. More about it, this time in symmetry. Same source: here is an experiment you and your students can do with your classroom cosmic ray detector.
Resources: Read about the benefits of basic research in symmetry. Fermilab physicist and masterclass moderator Mike Albrow writes about how anyone who uses GPS should care about general relativity.
Just for Fun: Fermilab baby bison and xkcd on geology
QuarkNet Staff:
Mark Adams: adams@fnal.gov
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu
Friday Flyer - April 21, 2017
Spotlight on the University of New Mexico QuarkNet Center: This center, located in Albuquerque, one of our new centers in 2017, is led by mentor Sally Seidel and lead teacher Gordon Zwartz. On April 8, they held their first ATLAS masterclass, bringing in approximately 30 students and 5 teachers from Albuquerque-area high schools. While learning about particle physics, the students were able to view and interact with several demonstrations, including cloud chambers and an e/m apparatus. This summer, New Mexico plans to send a few teachers to Fermilab for Data Camp and will be working with lead teachers to plan for 2018. It's great to have this group join our network!
News from QuarkNet Central: QuarkNet has a new cosmic ray project to measure muon rates during the upcoming solar eclipse this coming August 21 that may be of interest to teachers and students. Contact Mark Adams if you have questions or if you'd like to participate!
Physics Experiment Roundup: CERN's LHCb experiment recently released new findings that hints of new physics beyond the Standard Model. What do they need to be more sure? You guessed it: more data! (So, stay tuned!) Particle physics research happens not only underground, but under water as well. Check out this Wired article about hunting for neutrinos under the sea.
Resources: Fermilab's Don Lincoln addresses why the weak force is so weak in this video. See what symmetry has to say about the importance of basic, fundamental research. Space Weather shows that cosmic ray activity has been increasing with changes in solar activity.
Just for Fun: Have any leftover Peeps from last weekend? Use them, along with a microwave oven, to calculate the speed of light!
QuarkNet Staff:
Mark Adams: adams@fnal.gov
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu