Spotlight on Florida State: Florida State University is one of 12 centers that has been involved in QuarkNet since the very beginning: 1999. The teachers have worked each summer with Horst Wahl (FSU physicist on CMS), Brian McClain and Adam LaMee (high school teachers) and others. There were 16 teachers at the workshop this summer. Two FSU physicists gave talks about the discovery and importance of the Higgs. The teachers toured the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory and a campus facility for medical radiation. The teachers also worked through five different Data Portfolio activities including inspecting CMS events to determine the w+/w- production ratio in CMS. Teachers in the group continue to meet informally at monthly gatherings at a host high school.

News from QuarkNet Central: University of Wisconsin QuarkNet mentor Justin Vandenbroucke has been working with smart phones to detect cosmic rays. And there is a new post for QuarkNet an der Elbe, right under the Friday Flyer in the At Work section of the QuarkNet site. 

Resources: We have some random-but-nifty stuff this week.
Marie Curie's notebook is still hot stuff. Find out how at http://t.co/6IekPlcUfG.
You know c is for chocolate. Well, here, chocolate is for c: http://t.co/irE3nHCPNO.
Build quantum intuition. Look at http://t.co/irE3nHCPNO.

Just for Fun: One of the results of Science Hack Day in San Francisco was the new "LHC in your neighborhood" site by Nathan Bergey, who hacked it together in about two hours. You can get a map of anywhere with the LHC (or Tevatron) ring superimposed. It gives a good local sense of the scale of the machine. Try it! Put in your address (or any other) at http://natronics.github.io/science-hack-day-2014/lhc-map/. 

This was tweeted to us and is just plain enjoyable physics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Xp_imnO6WE.

QuarkNet Staff Teachers:
Ken Cecire, [email protected]
Tom Jordan, [email protected]
Bob Peterson, [email protected]

Spotlight on Dave Hoppert: 

Dave is responsible for providing the cosmic ray muon detectors used by the QuarkNet community. This includes coordinating all the technical and logistical aspects of getting the data acquisition (DAQ) and GPS circuit boards produced, and assembling all the parts that make up each CRMD kit. He also arranges for the delivery of kits to teachers and mentors for cosmic workshops and classroom use. When you have problems with your equipment, Dave is available to repair or replace what is needed. Just send it to him at Fermilab. Dave has been with QuarkNet for nearly ten years, making good use of his earlier career as a technical project manager at Bell Labs and Lucent Technologies. In his spare time Dave enjoys travel, fishing, golf and grandkids, well mostly the grandkids though sometimes fishing wins out.

News from QuarkNet Central: Where's Ken? He's in Dresden for six months as visiting researcher. Our very own Ken Cecire is working with Uta Bilow and Michael Kobel on International Masterclasses. They are sharing lessons learned; Ken will draw on his years with QuarkNet and other professional development programs. Check out his blog, QuarkNet an der Elbe, on the At Work page just below the Friday Flyer. 

Resources: It is difficult to keep up with the videos coming from Don Lincoln; here is a list:
The Origin of Mass - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8grN3zP8cg
Particle Detectors Subatomic Bomb Squad - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d6sKfPfYTU
Got a Minute Series - http://www.youtube.com/user/TheUSCMS

Just for Fun: Amazing news from George Odell, Boston Area QuarkNet Center. The "Quantum Cosmos Club" at North Andover, Massachusetts just presented "Particle Fever" to an audience of about 20 kids on a Friday afternoon! That is unheard of at high schools. It was a trememdous hit. George is the club advisor. 

Send us your amazing news!

QuarkNet Staff Teachers:
Ken Cecire, [email protected]
Tom Jordan, [email protected]
Bob Peterson, [email protected]

Spotlight on the Vanderbilt University Center: The center has always been very active in the cosmic ray program. This was a year of adjustment in three areas: Bill Gabela took over as lead mentor with Med Webster still active but stepping more into the background; a general need for updating the e-Lab; and the new opportunities afforded by EQUIP and data blessing. This made for an exciting summer session, with a full cosmic workshop by Bob Peterson, visits to the Vanderbilt Dyer Observatory and the Arnold Engineering Center, talks to keep everyone in the CMS loop, and cosmic ray experiments. (Have a look.)

News from QuarkNet Central: Announcing our new Data Portfolio live on /
The website organizes some of your favorite activities by data strand--Cosmic, LHC, LIGO--and level of student engagement. Designed with input from the fellows, we expect this website to make it easier for you to select activities that offer a learning experience of an appropriate length and level for your students. We include links to masterclasses, Level 2, and e-Labs, Level 3; when you are logged in, you can leave comments about how you have used the activities, suggestions for others, etc. You will find the Data Portfolio on the gray navigation bar. Check it out!

Resources: Sign up for virtual tours at CERN.
ATLAS: http://atlas-live-virtual-visit.web.cern.ch/atlas-live-virtual-visit/ Go to "Contact" in lower-left corner.
CMS: http://cms.web.cern.ch/content/virtual-visits

Just for Fun: Shortest-known abstract for serious scientific paper: only 2 words
http://boingboing.net/2014/08/08/shortest-known-abstract-for-a.html

QuarkNet Staff Teachers:
Ken Cecire, [email protected]
Tom Jordan, [email protected]
Bob Peterson, [email protected]

Spotlight on the Idaho State University Center: Seven teachers attended the June Idaho State QuarkNet workshop guided by fellow Robert Franckowiak. They jointly calibrated 36 detector counters. That’s quite a stack of counters! First, they used the Cosmic Ray e-Lab plateauing instructions found in the Library: resources to find the PMT voltage sweet spot. Then, they adjusted the rates using the new EQUIP data interface (also found in the Cosmic Ray e-Lab: Library: Resources), and lastly, an upload to the Cosmic Ray e-Lab allowed a comparison of the time-over-threshold histogram using the performance studies. The tall stack confirmed everything and was fun. All of this was in preparation for developing cosmic ray studies that could be implemented when the teachers returned home. Five posters resulted focused on geometry and barometric pressure effects. Search the Cosmic Ray e-Lab posters during the workshop date window of June 16-20 to see the posters. With common detector calibration, the group hopes to coordinate flux studies after returning to their home schools; all separated by hundreds of miles and thousands of feet.

International Muon Day: Join your colleagues worldwide! QuarkNet is invited by DESY/Zeuthen to participate in an IPPOG-sponsored worldwide day of collecting cosmic ray data. The date is Wednesday, October 8. This annual event alternates with a similar QuarkNet effort in the spring. The fall event focuses on one-day collection; the spring event is weeklong data gathering. We hope to get many detectors on the air simultaneously. Data will be shared in the Cosmic Ray e-Lab (www.i2u2.org/elab/cosmic) and students will share their results. This fall’s topics will focus on cosmic showers and zenith angle. Find the announcement website and register: www.cern.ch/icd2014

Resources: 
The Expanding Universe by Don Lincoln and Brian Nord publlished in The Physics Teacher (pdf file attached)
Five Reasons We Think Dark Matter Exists by Amanda Yoho at medium.com

QuarkNet Staff Teachers
Ken Cecire, [email protected]
Tom Jordan, [email protected]
Bob Peterson, [email protected]

Spotlight on the Johns Hopkins Center: 

The QuarkNet Center at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) had a very full summer 2014. They hosted a workshop for teachers and brought on summer research students. One of the teachers (Kevin Martz) attended a three-week teacher workshop at CERN and brought his excitement back to share with his colleagues at JHU.

Physics Experiment Roundup: The LHCb collaboration announced a result that hints of new physics.
http://news.discovery.com/space/another-glimpse-of-new-physics-at-the-lhc-140607.htm

Resources: 10 reasons why you can’t live without a particle accelerator
From the Nautilus website: http://nautil.us/issue/14/mutation/10-reasons-why-you-cant-live-without-a-particle-accelerator

Just for Fun: Win a trip to CERN: US LHC video contest
Stay tuned! As a way to advertise the restart of the LHC experiments, the US LHC collaboration plans to hold a video contest this fall: “What do you hope the LHC experiments will discover next?” The winner will be flown to CERN.

QuarkNet Staff Teachers
Ken Cecire, [email protected]
Bob Peterson, [email protected]
Tom Jordan, [email protected]

Welcome back to the Friday Flyer!

Hope you had a good summer and good times with your QuarkNet colleagues.

Starting next week, we will have a new spotlight and a new location. This year we will focus on a center a week. It will take the whole year to get through all of them.

We invite you to send us an interesting story from your center. Meanwhile, the staff will also be cooking up ideas about what you have been doing. We have no particular order in mind, so as stories and ideas come forward, we will prepare the features.

Contact [email protected].

Now, about the location: You will find the Friday Flyer on the new website, quarknet.i2u2.org.

Look for the link on At Work under Forms and Documents.

We look forward to another great year with QuarkNet. Hope you keep checking the website for the next flyer. We’ll remind you!

Cheers,
Marge, Ken, Tom, Bob, Mitch, Anna, Dan