Introduction to Ideas about Physics and Pedagogy for QuarkNet Teachers

by  Life Lab Foundation

This page is meant to give a new teacher a start on professional development in QuarkNet. It is based on three big ideas:

1. Students can learn fundamental concepts through particle physics.
2. Students can learn fundamental concepts through authentic experimental data from research. 
3. Students can learn fundamental concepts  by inquiry in collaboration with their peers locally, nationally, and worldwide. 

There are addtional resources below.

Learn through particle physics

Particle physics is exciting and compelling. It probes into some of the most basic questions of our exisitence. At the same time, it is accessible to students and teachers when properly presented. It is important that, beyond the content of particle physics, pedagoy is focused on the methods. How do physicists learn new physics? How do they trust or reject their conclusions?

Students will find funamental concepts - the very concepts we teach in school - behind particle physics. At the same time, they will get a glimpse of quantum mechanics and relativity  at a working, non-esoteric level.

These resources orient the teacher toward and understanding of particle physics and its use in the classroom:  

• The Particle Adventure. This website takes the user through several different strands of the story of particle physics at a basic level. 
• The Standard Model - Fermilab physicist Don Lincoln explains the Standard Model of particle physics simply in this short video.
• Mapping the Poles - This student activity connects how we investigate particle physics with basics of magenetism, showing how high school physics connects to particle physics.

Learn through data analysis

Experiemtal particle physucs runs on data and statistics. A lot of data: where in an experiment in school a student may confront ~10 data points, discovering or characterizing a fundamental particle relies on millions of events - each an interaction the study of which relies on many channels and much reduction of fundamental data. Statistics plays a large role. So do large data sets. The answer to every quandary is more data, better data. Students can learn fundamenral physics concepts by examining the behavior of nature, that is, by amassing and anayzing data.

These resources help explain physics data analysis: 

• The Higgs boson: the hunt, the discovery, the study and some future perspectives. In this article, Heather Gray and Bruno Masoulie of the ATLAS collaboration at CERN describe the discovery of the Higgs boson from a data analysis point-of-view.
• Scientific Searches Statistics Explained. Don Lincoln discusses the statistics behind data analysis in particle physics.
• Histograms: The Basics. In this activity, students look at the importance of histograms in analyzing data.

Inquiry and collaboration

This is where the first two principles really combine. If we give students curated particle physics data that can be analyzed at their level, we can help them learn, reinforce, and employ fundamental physics concepts by working together to draw conclusions from the results. Students can examine large amoiunts of data and discuss concerns such as uncertainty and bias by collaborating first wihin their classroom and then across the wider world. Guidance from teachers and physicists is crucial but students can and should come to conclusions themselves based on data.

These resources on inquiry learning and how particle physicists construct knowledge will help:

• What the Heck is Inquiry-Based Learning? Teacher Heather Wolpert-Gowron gives and overview.
• A Day with Particles.  A day in the life of Czech particle physicist. Vojtech Pleskot that shows the scientific process on a humas scale.
• Making Tracks I. Students work together styudying cloud chambers to characterize particle tracks.

In addtion

More resources:

• QuarkNet: A Unique and Transformative Physics Education Program. This article in Education Sciences by QuarkNet Principal Investigatros Marge Bardeen and Mitchell Wayne and QuarkNet Evaluator M. Jean Young gives an overview of the QuarkNet program and its effectiveness for students and teachers.
• Particle Fever. This feature-length movie conveys the excitement of scientific inquiry and collaboration in particle physics at CERN in the successful search for the Higgs boson.