Cosmic Watch Lab Suite

The Cosmic Watch (CW) is a small cosmic ray detector that consists of a 4 cm x 4 cm scintillator, a silicon photomultiplier (SiPM), a programmable Arduino taking data, a small screen to read data, and supporting electronics. See Appendix A for more details. This suite of data activities describes experiments that can be done either at the singles or two-fold rate.

The CW Suite consists of the following activities:

• Singles rate (one unit only) mode:
  • Radiation vs. distance
  • Muon-mapping the school
• Two-fold rate (two units connected) mode:
  • Cosmic ray rates vs. zenith angle
  • Cosmic ray rates vs. vertical separation of counters.
• Other measurements
  • Once students are used to working with the CW they may think of new experiments they can do.

These activities can be done with a class that has access to a sufficient number of Cosmic Watches to allow lab groups of 2 – 5 students. The measurements for each activity can be collected in two 50-minute lab periods.

Suggested assessment questions are embedded in the implementation section of each activity. Suggested responses are provided in italics.