2014 Annual Report - Hawaii
Hawaii QuarkNet activities -- Oct. 2013 to Aug. 2014
The major event in the past year was the CMS Masterclass at Punahou on 8 March 2014. The Cosmic Ray Day at BYU-Hawaii on 7 Sept. 2013 was described in last year's report. Photos from these events are at http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/~qu
The CMS Masterclass at Punahou on 8 March was organized by Tiffany Coke. The agenda is at
http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/~qu
The morning introduction included an icebreaker activity to generate questions about particle physics. There was a brief introduction
to bubble chamber photos and a visit to the QuarkNet cosmic ray detector described by Hanno Adams. A total of 32 students
participated -- 19 from Punahou, 6 from Mid-Pacific Inst., 2 from La Pietra, and 5 8th-graders from Niu Valley Middle School.
After the group returned from the visit to the cosmic ray detector, the trailer from the documentary "Particle Fever"
was shown. Veronica Bindi and Jason Kumar from UH Manoa described their research. The main presentation about the LHC was given
by Mani Tripathi from UC Davis who works on the CMS experiment. (Jason had arranged Mani's visit as part of his outreach activity.)
Students then had a chance to ask their questions before lunch.
After lunch and informal discussions between students and physicists, Tiffany introduced the data analysis. The 32 students divided
into 14 groups to examine events with frequent questions and help from physicists. Three groups analyzed more than 40 events but most
did 15-30. Four groups did fewer than 10. It seems that more practice analyzing events and with the spreadsheet was needed
for many students. The day ended with discussion of the mass plot.
The following Friday afternoon, 14 March, students came after school for the videoconference with students in Shanghai,
China. The students enjoyed comparison of mass plots and asking questions of the other group. Overall, the event was a success.
Two teachers had students use e-Lab data and make posters. Duc Ong's students uploaded 14 posters. Five were nearly
empty trials. About half of the completed ones involved flux analyses and the rest had lifetime or shower analyses.
Peter Grach's students uploaded 32 posters this year. This is the 3rd year that his students have made posters. Nearly
all involved flux analyses. Five looked for correlations between flux and solar flares. Peter made a presentation about this year's posters at our 10 May meeting.
The agenda for the 10 May meeting follows. For the first time we used Vidyo so that Keith Imada could participate from Maui
and Dave Trapp from Washington. The 3-5 June dates for a cosmic ray detector were feasible for Punahou but only three
teachers would have attended so it was decided to look for alternatives.
Hawaii QuarkNet Meeting
Saturday 10 May 2014
0900 - 1200
UH Manoa, Watanabe 217
QuarkNet teachers:
Most people who responded can meet on 10 May. This meeting
will focus on student projects and plans for the summer and
upcoming academic year.
The tentative agenda is below.
Higgs & Particle Fever -- Jason
projects at Kamehameha -- Peter
projects & plans at Punahou -- Hanno
CMS Masterclass in 2015 : how to improve?
2014 students : 19 Punahou, 6 MPI, 5 Niu Valley MS, 2 La Pietra
projects & plans using Maui data -- Keith
data/plans from the detector at BYU-Hawaii -- Mike Weber & Selene
peculiarity on 19 April
data/plans from the Windward CC detector -- Mike
flux increase & PMT 1 increase of 20 V on 7 Feb.
prospects for projects at Maryknoll -- Gene
news from QuarkNet -- Dave
future Cosmic Ray Day events? how to get more students?
possible workshop dates
From: Robert S. Peterson <rspete@fnal.gov>
Subject: Re: QuarkNet: floating a workshop idea
well, the summer has become chocker-block, but we might be able to
shoe-horn in some dates.
try these: more problematic, with no promises:
3-5 Jun 15-17 Jul
22-24 Jul 10-12 Jun
19-21 Aug