Cosmic Watch Lab Suite

Stacked Cosmic Watches

This Cosmic Watch Suite of data activities describes experiments that can be done either at the singles or two-fold rate.

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.

Materials
Attributes
Data Strand
Level
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) Practices