Friday Flyer/News
Submitted by kcecire
on Wednesday, September 13, 2017 - 12:53
Friday Flyer - November 21, 2014
Spotlight on Andres Torres and His Students: Students from Andres Torres' class at Ronald Reagan/Doral Senior High School represented South Florida at the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in May 2014. Andres introduced more concepts in particle physics to all of his classes after attending a QuarkNet workshop at Florida International University in Summer 2013. He created a group of 10 students to "specialize" in particle physics; two members of the group took their work to ISEF. The pair worked with Andres and David Jones of FIU; they used the QuarkNet cosmic ray detector to measure the deflection of cosmic rays by magnetic fields and free-flowing ions in electrolytic cells. The title of their project was: "Muon Flux through Various Substances and Conditions." Andres is extremely proud of these students and their passion for particle physics; wouldn't you be?
News from QuarkNet Central: Has your group participated in International Muon Week (IMW) before? Watch your email! An announcement for this year's program will be out soon!
For the past four years a small group of QuarkNet teachers have developed a collaboration activity using the cosmic ray detector. IMW allows students and teachers to analyze cosmic ray flux data from sites worldwide. Participants experience the excitement of data-driven science by sharing and collaborating just as the particle physics research community does.
Jeff Rodriguez, University of Cincinnati QuarkNet Center, traveled to CERN to speak at a recent International Particle Physics Outreach Group (IPPOG) meeting to introduce the group to the project and to promote networking with member countries. Besides the general CERN tour and seeing the new synchrocyclotron exhibit, he was able to tour the caverns at ATLAS and LHCb. The LHCb tour included an in-depth look at the old Delphi detector. This was the first machine data for masterclass that Jeff worked with. Although the first snow fell in the mountains that week, there was only time for a brief tour of Geneva before the long flight back home.
In other news, a fresh QuarkNet an der Elbe is online.
Physics Experiment Roundup: Got a Minute? Are there extra dimensions?
CERN press release: LHCb experiment observes two new baryon particles never seen before
Resources: Do you know Cambridge Physics for the IB Diploma by K. A. Tsokos? Duc Ong (Hawaii center) uses it to prepare students for doing an e-Lab; topics include particles and interactions, detectors and accelerators, quarks and leptons, experimental evidence for the Standard Model and more.
Do you have a different favorite? Let us know. Leave a comment.
CERN announces the 2015 Beamline for Schools Competition.
Just for Fun: Have you seen the Lego accelerator? From Mike Wadness and Zach G. (one of his students)
QuarkNet Staff Teachers:
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Tom Jordan: jordant@fnal.gov
Bob Peterson: rspete@fnal.gov
Friday Flyer - November 14, 2014
Spotlight on Colorado State University: The CSU QuarkNet Center has lost its current mentors due to research and teaching commitments. This center has bonded into a strong group of teachers (and they wish to continue with QuarkNet), but we need to find one or two mentors. If anyone has physics contacts or leads in the Ft. Collins/Denver area, please let us know.
Six teachers attended the August summer workshop focused on two components: CMS and Cosmic. Shane Wood, CMS fellow, guided the first two days taking a deep look at using the CMS e-Lab. Using real CMS data, the group compiled histograms and measured the mass of the Z boson. All of these activities can migrate into the teacher's classroom. Norm Buchanan gave a lecture on the LHC experiments that dovetailed with a virtual tour of CMS experiment. Teachers spoke remotely with CMS scientists and asked questions. The second two days provided advanced work with the cosmic ray detector and e-Lab. These days built on previous two years' workshops, except this time the group focused on the mechanics of data blessing: how to pick a benchmark file and select data for blessing tests. Cosmic fellow Robert Franckowiak from the Idaho State University QN Center facilitated the cosmic work.
CSU lead teacher Cherie Bornhorst attended the 2014 HST program at CERN. She was there with Robert Franckowiak and Kevin Martz.
News from QuarkNet Central: EQUIP is the new DAQ interface tool. This Java-based application was a real step up from the old HyperTerminal interface and much appreciated by the teachers who learned to use it at the CSU workshop (see above). EQUIP is much easier to use and the users really like the real-time view of data capture. Want to know more? Contact Bob.
Physics Experiment Roundup: Curious about dark matter? Read this background from three scientists at EarthSky.
Resources: A nice article from symmetry, The November Revolution
Just for Fun: Do you know how these five physics demos work? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Xp_imnO6WE (from Veritasium)
QuarkNet Staff Teachers:
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Tom Jordan: jordant@fnal.gov
Bob Peterson: rspete@fnal.gov
Friday Flyer - November 7, 2014
Spotlight on the University of Hawai'i at Manoa QuarkNet Center: The group in Hawai'i has been active since 2003. The university is on Oahu; most of the teachers are as well but some teachers from other islands also attend. Mike Jones is the long-standing mentor and is using his last year at the university as a transition of leadership to Veronica Bindi. The teachers met on a recent Saturday to disuss cosmic rays. Several came, brought students and spent the day analyzing data. They investigated patterns in the long-term flux measurements from their own detectors. They also discussed recent results from the Alpha Magnetic Spectromoter (AMS-02) currently installed on the International Space Station (http://www.ams02.org). There was also pizza.
News from QuarkNet Central: Keep your eyes peeled for an announcement about the Summer 2015 Data Camp at Fermilab. Participants will spend the week analyzing data and exploring classroom activities that allow students to develop facility with data. Each center can nominate two teachers. Mentors should submit names early in order to grab one of the 24 slots.
QuarkNet an der Elbe is "on the air" at /document/quarknet-der-elbe-away-team.
Physics Experiment Roundup: Dark matter at the Milky Way's core? http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-matter-explosions-at-milky-way-core/ (from Scientific American)
Resources: Three short videos with lots of stats from USCMS staring the LHC (and Don Lincoln)
LHC Magnets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2HDD7REJE0
CMS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zk-nFWMaw6U
LHC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHnFIv7LJRM
QuarkNet Staff Teachers:
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Tom Jordan: jordant@fnal.gov
Bob Peterson: rspete@fnal.gov
Friday Flyer - October 31, 2014
Spotlight on UC Riverside QuarkNet Center: The QuarkNet center at the University of California Riverside focused this past year on masterclasses for two reasons: they have their own twist on it and they are good at it. If you catch it just right in March when the U.S. has "sprung ahead" an hour but Europe has not, Riverside is only eight hours behind CERN. Nevertheless, ever since they started masterclasses about seven years ago, Riverside QuarkNet students and teachers have done their masterclass one day and then gotten up early the next day for a CERN videoconference at 8 am PT. There is a certain spirit to Riverside masterclass. Students often sport customized masterclass T-shirts, and the event is often covered by the Riverside Press Enterprise. If you are in Southern California, the Riverside QuarkNet center is the only currently active center in your neck of the woods. Interested? Contact Ken Cecire and he'll put you in touch with the mentors: Bob Clare, robert.clare@ucr.edu; Bill Gary, bill.gary@cern.ch; Owen Long, owen.long@ucr.edu.
News from QuarkNet Central: Got a detector? It's a good time to update under Detector Information how you and your students used the detector since September 2013.
Check the DAQ number(s). Still yours?
What did you do? Did you upload data to the e-Lab? Did you use the detector with your AP class in the spring? Maybe your science club did an investigation or you used it at your center during the summer.
Let us know! When we put it altogether, it tells a story to DOE and NSF about how you are using data with your students.
Physics Experiment Roundup: Who Really Found the Higgs Boson, http://nautil.us/issue/18/genius/who-really-found-the-higgs-boson (from Nautilus)
Resources: From Don Dean - Want to show a portion of the video or flip your classroom? Try EDpuzzle (https://edpuzzle.com/) to cut snippets out of larger YouTube videos and embed them into your classroom platform (i.e., Moodle, Edmodo, My Big Campus, or personal webpage); actually kind of nice if you simply want to highlight a portion of a video or cut out unnecessary or inappropriate content.
QuarkNet Staff Teachers:
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Tom Jordan: jordant@fnal.gov
Bob Peterson: rspete@fnal.gov
Friday Flyer - October 24, 2014
Spotlight on Anne Zakas:
You may have never met Anne Zakas, but you probably rely on her. Anne is the QuarkNet administrator at Notre Dame. She gets bills paid, stipends sent, and travel arranged for much of QuarkNet. Anne has been at the Notre Dame QuarkNet Center since 2007 from a humanities background (BA in French from Notre Dame) and has added education to her portfolio through her work for QuarkNet and a Master's in Educational Leadership from IU South Bend. Anne is married to Joe Zakas, an Indiana State Senator since 1982, and they have four adult children and a granddaughter with whom Anne spends her favorite time. Folks in the Notre Dame QuarkNet office depend on Anne to not only get things done but also to be the kind, steady voice that keeps everything in perspective. Contact Anne at zakas.1@nd.edu.
News from QuarkNet Central: There is a handy one-page table of contents to all the QuarkNet an der Elbe posts. Check it out each week.
Physics Experiment Roundup: New exotic particle in LHC data?
http://www.livescience.com/48271-new-particle-ds3-discovered.html
Resources: Smart phone cosmic ray detectors
http://crayfis.ps.uci.edu/
Just for Fun: Measure the speed of light at home using chocolate and a microwave.
bit.ly/1omx2CR (from the Smithsonian)
QuarkNet Staff Teachers
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Tom Jordan: jordant@fnal.gov
Bob Peterson: rspete@fnal.gov
Friday Flyer - October 17, 2014
Spotlight on Black Hills State University: BHSU QuarkNet Center had a busy summer. For six years they have focused on using the cosmic ray muon detector and e-Lab. This year seven teachers and three students gathered all six of the detectors including equipment from several teachers who could not attend but wanted to benefit from a group calibration. The experienced group knew the steps to plateau and adjust rates so all the detectors matched. This they did without delay, so all the counters responded exactly the same under the same conditions. Then they moved on to joint studies and advanced topics. The group installed the new Java interface, EQUIP, to talk to the DAQ, and this met enthusiastic support considering how difficult HyperTerminal has been. One of the high school students even figured out how to get EQUIP to work on a Linux system. The group examined the new blessing routines and attempted to bless some of their data. The teachers designed a classroom activity using the detector and e-Lab after first running the investigation from a student perspective. Those activities can be seen at the QuarkNet website: /node/241/recent-content
BHSU also hosted the QuarkNet Virtual Center for their traveling bi-annual workshop. This center, too, looked at EQUIP and blessing under the guidance of Jim Stith, BHSU teacher and e-Lab fellow; Mike Wadness lead an ILC workshop. The Virtual workshop finished with a tour of Sanford Lab.
Three students attended the six-week Summer Research Student Program lead by Steve Gabriel. The students assisted in the installation of remote control underground monitors at Sanford Lab. Lastly, the big accolade for BHSU teacher LuAnn Lindskov who was selected as the 2014 South Dakota Teacher of the Year.
News from QuarkNet Central: International Cosmic Day was held on October 8. According to the Google map, 13 QuarkNet sites participated with 19 other international sites to do their own experiments in nearby universities, research institutions or even in their classrooms and share results.
Registration for International Masterclasses is now officially open. You can find links to the doodles and more information at /content/videoconferences-2015. Questions? Ask Ken Cecire.
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: Check out these sobering lessons learned from a teacher who shadowed two students for two days: Lessons Learned
FYI: Many of Marie Curie's personal belongings, like her 100-year-old notebook, are still too radioactive to touch. (from FACTUALLY)
QuarkNet Staff Teachers:
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Tom Jordan: jordant@fnal.gov
Bob Peterson: rspete@fnal.gov
Friday Flyer - October 10, 2014
Spotlight on LBNL: Particle physics? Check. Cosmology and astrophysics? Check. Awesome view of San Francisco Bay? Check again. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory QuarkNet Center does things a little differently. This summer they had a one-week workshop with 13 teachers and 41 students from all around the Bay Area. Physicists gave great presentations, but so did QuarkNet teachers—they had a prominent role. The students and teachers also did an ATLAS data activity and did experiments with cosmic ray detectors. It was all organized by QuarkNet teacher Laurie Kerrigan and powered by mentors Tony Spadafora and Eric Linder. It was quite a workshop.
News from QuarkNet Central: Registration for Spring Masterclasses is now open. Our friend Ken keeps us updated on his adventure in this week's QuarkNet an der Elbe. Those blue, blinky lights on the QuarkNet cosmic ray muon detector are LEDs. You may have heard about blue LEDs this week.
Resources:
Radioactive decay rates don't depend on the distance between Earth and Sun. Really.
Fermilab's new experiment has a theme song.
Just for Fun: Apparently some journalists grok science better than others.
QuarkNet Staff Teachers:
Ken Cecire, kcecire@nd.edu
Tom Jordan, jordant@fnal.gov
Bob Peterson, rspete@fnal.gov
Friday Flyer - October 3, 2014
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, kcecire@nd.edu
Tom Jordan, jordant@fnal.gov
Bob Peterson, rspete@fnal.gov
Friday Flyer - September 26, 2014
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, kcecire@nd.edu
Tom Jordan, jordant@fnal.gov
Bob Peterson, rspete@fnal.gov
Friday Flyer - September 19, 2014
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, kcecire@nd.edu
Tom Jordan, jordant@fnal.gov
Bob Peterson, rspete@fnal.gov