KSU Annual Report
Kansas State University QuarkNet Center, 2015-2016 Annual Report
The K-State group held a week-long workshop and a Masterclass (and Masterclass Orientation) in the last fiscal year.
The Masterclass Orientation was held on February 20, 2016 and was attended by 9 teachers.
The Masterclass was held on March 4, 2016 and was attended by 8 teachers and 27 students on site and 1 teacher and 18 students participated from their high school. KSU Physics hosted a short program of demos and hands-on physics activities and we also toured the KSU Nuclear Reactor. Most KSU HEP and Cosmology graduate students helped with the Masterclass activities.
A week-long workshop was held at KSU on August 8-12, 2016. This was attended by 13 teachers. The first two days were devoted to cosmic ray detectors and four teachers brought their detectors and took data and measured the speed of muons, closing with short talks of their observations. The teachers plan to keep their cosmic ray detectors running their schools. On Wednesday the teachers built cloud chambers and got them running and will try to continue using them in their schools. Martin Shaffer ran the activities on the first three days. Tim Bolton gave two talks, on cloud chambers and on the LHC & CMS. Brian Washburn gave an extended lecture and presentation with demos on electromagnetic radiation and polarization. Four teachers stayed for the last two days and worked on CMS e-Labs with Shane Wood.
On other fronts, KSU QuarkNet teachers continued to avail themselves of national QuarkNet and other HEP-related opportunities seeded by QuarkNet. Emma Detrixhe participated in the 2016 Data Camp at Fermilab.
The KSU group remains strong in its thirteenth year of existence. Approximately two and a half dozen teachers participate, a core group of a dozen or so regularly, and the rest at the rate of once every other meeting. We continue to specialize in serving small rural high schools throughout the state. Plans for 2016-2017 include an early spring Masterclass orientation workshop and participation in a Masterclass in late spring 2017.