LHC Physics in the Classroom @ TX AAPT 2024

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Submitted by ShaneWood on Thu, 03/21/2024 - 04:50
Special Projects

TX AAPT Spring Meeting 2024 Workshop: LHC Physics in the Classroom

Saturday, 23 March, 2024 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM CT

Tarleton State University, Stephenville, TX

Room: SCIEN 234

Small URL for this page: https://tinyurl.com/qntxaapt24

Agenda

Time (CT) Activity
10:00 AM

  Greetings and introductions

  • Whip around for introductions
    • Name 
    • Where are you from?
    • Institution and role
    • What are you hoping to get out of this workshop?
       
  • What is QuarkNet? 
  • Setting the stage: Big to small
~10:15 AM

    Activity: Shuffling the Particle Deck
     What are the elementary particles that make up the Standard Model?
~10:45 AM

  Activity: Rolling with Rutherford
     Using indirect evidence to "see" the invisible. 

  Activity: Calculate the Z Mass
     Using conservation laws (energy/momentum) to calculate the mass of a particle.

~12:00 PM

   LUNCH BREAK
~12:30 PM

  World Wide Data Day measurement
     Muons used in a calibration measurement at the LHC.  
~1:45 PM

  Concluding Discussion

  • Tour of QuarkNet.org and Data Actvities Portfolio
  • Implementation ideas
  • Evaluation
2:00 PM

 

  End of workshop

 

 

Contacts

Shane Wood, QuarkNet National Staff
Mary Yarbray, Klein HS & Lead Teacher @ Rice University QuarkNet Center
Chris Hatten, Cypress Lakes HS, QuarkNet Coding fellow & member of Rice University QuarkNet Center
Julie Bell, Klein Collins High School & member of Rice University QuarkNet Center
 

 

TX AAPT Program information:

 

SATURDAY AM
W6 “LHC Physics in the Classroom”, presented by Shane Wood, QuarkNet National Staff, Shoreview, MN; Rice University QuarkNet Center – Mary Yarbray, Klein High School; Julie Bell, Klein Collins High School; and Chris Hatten, Cypress Lakes High School.
Students who complete an introductory physics course may be under the impression that physics somehow “stopped” in the late 19th or early 20th century. Of course this idea could not be further from the truth, as physicists today continue to work on addressing an ever-growing list of unsolved questions: Where has all the antimatter gone? What is dark matter? What is dark energy? (What questions have we not thought of yet?) Physicists from all over the world work to address these and many other questions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, on the border of Switzerland and France. This workshop will focus on how teachers can tap into the excitement of LHC physics to both motivate students and provide a contemporary context for them to engage with topics and practices covered in introductory physics courses, including (but not limited to) conservation laws, data collection, organization, and analysis, and making claims based on evidence. Participants in this workshop will alternate between “student mode” and “teacher mode”, will analyze authentic LHC data, and will get a chance to work through some activities from QuarkNet’s Data Activities Portfolio. The workshop will conclude with a discussion on classroom implementation. Some of the activities will be computer-based, so please bring along a laptop!   This workshop is supported by the NSF-funding for QuarkNet, https://quarknet.org, and
OPTYCs, https://optycs.aapt.org/.
Limited to 18 participants – 4.0 hours

Location: SCIEN 234 at 10:00 am – 2:00 pm