QuarkNet Annual Report 2022-2023
Our previous annual report concluded with the expectation that “QuarkNet activities in our center are back again, and we look forward to inviting high school students for MasterClasses soon!” I am happy to report that the Rice/UH QuarkNet center is back at its full strength following the “post” pandemic workshop in June 2021. Since then, we have seen increased attendance and interest from high school teachers, students, and faculty from both Rice University and the University of Houston. We are grateful for the continuing support that our center enjoys from the QuarkNet leadership, the Rice Physics & Astronomy department, and the IRIS-HEP organization.
I will cover 2022 and 2023 in this report, as the former did not appear to have made it on the main QuarkNet pages. During this period, we organized two Summer Workshops for High School Teachers and two Masterclasses for High School Students. At the same time, we have been advocating using QuarkNet’s Cosmic Ray e-Lab by bringing interested schools to our campus and learning first-hand about the Cosmic Ray Detector.
Our overarching goal aligns with the national QuarkNet network: provide science teachers the means to develop their skills and bring real research into the high school science classroom. For that, our Teacher Summer workshops fulfill a dual purpose to achieve that goal and help science teachers prepare students for the masterclasses that we typically hold in the spring.
On Saturday, April 30, 2022, we organized the first masterclass since 2019. We welcomed 27 students from five high schools to the Rice campus. In a post-pandemic update, we moved our masterclass to a state-of-the-art computer lab. A jam-packed agenda included lectures on particle physics, how detectors work, and preparations for analyzing real data from the CMS detector located at the LHC (CERN). And while these tracks on computer screens may seem abstract at times, we also found time to visit state-of-the-art physics laboratories on campus. One tour showed us the machinery that allows us to see fundamental particles at work: QuarkNet’s Cosmic Ray Detector, a Cloud Chamber, and even a pocket-sized little cosmic ray detector built by undergraduate students based on an MIT design. Right before lunch, which was kindly provided by the department, students took another tour, this time to a lab, where they found the coldest place on campus.
The 2022 Teacher Summer Workshop ran from June 6 - 10. It covered three major modules: a two-day coding workshop, a two-day workshop on neutrinos, and a one-day workshop on the 10th anniversary of the discovery of the Higgs boson. For the first part, we enjoyed the remote instruction from QuarkNet fellows, while the second two workshops were led in person by QuarkNet fellows Shane Wood and Ken Cecire. Right before lunch every day, Rice and UH faculty gave an hour-long lecture on their physics research. On Monday, Prof. Ecklund (Rice) discussed the latest news about detector upgrades for the CMS detector. The next day, Prof. Ratti (UH) discussed how her work draws on similarities between heavy-ion and neutron-star collisions. On Wednesday, Prof. Acosta (Rice) warmed everybody up for the Higgs@10 workshop by discussing the ins and outs of the Higgs boson. On Thursday, Prof. Yepes (Rice) discussed his work on medical applications of nuclear and particle physics in the field of Medical Physics.
The next masterclass followed on Saturday, March 25, 2023. About 30 high school students and some of their teachers attended. This year, Prof. Acosta and I alternated giving mini-lectures on particle physics, particle detectors, and how to analyze CMS data. Splitting the group into two allowed us to sprinkle in some fun campus tours. One tour allowed students to actually “see” real muons through several detectors, such as a Cloud Chamber, but also using QuarkNet’s own Cosmic Ray Detectors. A second campus tour allowed students to enter real physics research laboratories - thanks to Prof. Morosan and Rice’s Dean of Natural Sciences, Prof. Killian. As any graduate student will attest, analyzing data makes you hungry, so we were once again thankful for the Department of Physics & Astronomy to provide lunch to all the high school analyzers!
The Teacher Summer Workshop in June 2023 took a slightly different approach from past workshops. After a successful mini-workshop on coding in 2022, we decided to work with IRIS-HEP and pair a more comprehensive three-day coding component with two QuarkNet mini-workshops. It also allowed us to increase the number of teachers who usually participate in our annual Summer Workshop. One of the mini-workshops focussed on World-Wide Data Day to prepare teachers who would like to take this event into their classes, but also as an opportunity to help shape student interest for the 2024 masterclass. The last mini-workshop focused on “New Questions,” which covered recent hits and misses in scientific research. Throughout the week, we had again an exciting number of faculty and researchers discussing heavy-ion collisions in the LHC (Prof. Bellwied, UH), superconducting materials (Prof. Morosan, Rice), machine learning with neutrinos (Prof. Higuera, Rice), the physics of music (Prof. Toffoletto, Rice), and all there is to know about the 2024 solar eclipse (Dr. Colmenares, Rice).
Frank Geurts (mentor, Rice/UH QuarkNet Center)