Notre Dame QuarkNet Annual Report 2017

The Notre Dame QuarkNet Center met almost every Monday during the school year as it has since just about the very beginning of QuarkNet. One of the highlights of those meetings in FY2017 were the planning session and updates with ND physics graduate student Rodolfo Capdevilla as part of his project to bring quantum physics to pre-university students, Inspiring High School Students to Enter STEM Careers Using Quantum Physics Demos. He was able to bring his project to several QuarkNet High Schools.

As in the past, the teachers in the ND Center organized to do some of their own outreach in the ETHOS Science Spooktacular in nearby Elkhart on October 29, 2016 and in Science Alive! at the St. Joseph County Library in South Bend on February 4, 2017.

Students and teachers from ND QuarkNet participated in International Masterclasses on March 17, March 30, and April 8, 2017; the first of these was run by QuarkNet teacher Jeremy Wegner at Winamac Community High School while the latter two were held at the Notre Dame QuarkNet Center under the mentorship of Dan Karmgard. Also, at about the same time, Jeremy became a QuarkNet LHC fellow. 

In summer 2017, ND QuarkNet embarked on its two most involved annual projects: iSPI, the International Summer Physics Institute, and QuarkNet student and teacher summer research. In iSPI, 13 advanced high school students from around the world came to Notre Dame July 17-28, 2017. They had a two-week intensive, hands-on experience in particle physics with actual data from CMS and from cosmic ray detectors. The students set up and ran thr detectors under the guidance of QuarkNet Cosmic Ray fellow Nate Unterman from the UIC center. In addition, ND QuarkNet teachers Jeff Chorny, Ben Mullins, Jeremy Wegner, and Jill Zeigler ran a one-day CMS-and-cosmic-ray experience for a larger gtoup of international students in the Notre Dame iLED program.