QuarkNet Data Portfolio

A collection of proven instructional activities developed around data strands that help students develop an understanding about how scientists make discoveries. 
The Data Portfolio organizes activities by data strand and level of student engagement. Activities differ in complexity and sophistication—tasks in Level 1 are simpler than those in Levels 2 and 3. While each level can be explored individually, students that start in one level and progress to more complex levels experience increasingly engaging and challenging tasks. Teachers select activities to offer a learning experience of an appropriate length and level for their students.

A collection of proven instructional activities developed around data strands that help students develop an understanding about how scientists make discoveries.

The Data Portfolio organizes activities by data strand and level of student engagement. Activities differ in complexity and sophistication—tasks in Level 1 are simpler than those in Levels 2 and 3. While each level can be explored individually, students that start in one level and progress to more complex levels experience increasingly engaging and challenging tasks. Teachers select activities to offer a learning experience of an appropriate length and level for their students.

Activity Name Data Strand Level Curriculum Topics NGSS Practices Topic
Making Tracks I

Students analyze tracks in a cloud chamber.

QuarkNet STEP UP Women in Physics

Lesson #3 in QuarkNet STEP UP Series on diversity and inclusion.

QuarkNet STEP UP: Careers in Physics

Lesson #2 in QuarkNet STEP UP Series on diversity and inclusion.

QuarkNet: Changing the Culture
Lesson #1 in QuarkNet STEP UP Series on diversity and inclusion.
CMS Masterclass WZH-path

Students are physicists for a day at a university or lab where they work with physicists to learn how to analyze real particle physics data in the form of event displays.

Energy, Momentum, and Mass

Students examine data to find how energy, momentum, and mass are related.

Histograms: Uncertainty

Students construct histograms, identify the best value to represent the data, and report the uncertainty in their answers. 

Rolling with Rutherford

Students use statistics to make an indirect measurement they can easily confirm.

Histograms: The Basics

Students build basic histogram skills required in many of the other activities in the Data Activities Portfolio.

What Heisenberg Knew

Heisenberg knew that, at the quantum level, we cannot know everything, at least not all at once. Students explore uncertainties in measurements of complimentary variables to find this out for themselves.