Data Activities Portfolio

The Data Portfolio is a compendium of particle physics classroom activities organized by Data Strand, Level of student engagement, Curriculum Topics and NGSS Standards. Follow the links provided for information about using the Data Portfolio to plan your students’ experience. Level descriptions explain the data analysis skills that students apply at each level: tasks in Level 0 are simpler than those in Levels 1 and 2...

Activity Name Data Strand Level Curriculum Topics NGSS Practices
quad Clone of Mapping the Poles

Students explore some basics of magnetic fields that can be related to experimental particle physics.

LHC Level 0 Electricity & Magnetism, Skill: Developing Models 2, 4, 6, 7
muoncard Clone of Shuffling the Particle Deck

Teams of students organize cards depicting fundamental particles based on their characteristics. This activity is a foundation for learning about the Standard Model and parallels the methods used by scientists to organize the elements into the period table.

Cosmic Ray, LHC, Neutrino Level 0 Skill: Developing Models, Spanish Language, Standard Model 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7
zmass-icon Calculate the Z Mass

Students use conservation laws and vector addition to calculate the Z mass from event displays.

LHC Level 1 Conservation Laws, Nature of Matter, Skill: Developing Models, Skill: Uncertainty, Spanish Language, Special Relativity, Standard Model 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
top-350 Calculate the Top Quark Mass

Students use conservation laws and vector addition to calculate the top mass from event displays.

Cosmic Ray, LHC Level 1 Conservation Laws, Skill: Uncertainty, Spanish Language, Special Relativity, Standard Model 1, 4, 5, 7
rwr_marblediagram Rolling with Rutherford

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

Cosmic Ray, LHC Level 1 Nature of Matter, Skill: Developing Models, Skill: Histograms, Skill: Uncertainty, Spanish Language 1, 3, 4, 5, 7
quad-350 Making it ‘Round the Bend - Qualitative

Students explore the effects of electric and magnetic fields on particles. 

LHC Level 1 Electricity & Magnetism, Kinematics, Spanish Language 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7
tot Signal and Noise: Cosmic Muons

In this introductory tutorial that, students learn about how to distinguish muon signals from background and instrumental noise.

Cosmic Ray Level 1 Instrumentation, Quantum Mechanics, Skill: Histograms, Skill: Uncertainty, Waves & Interference 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
dicedecay Mean Lifetime Part 1: Dice

Rolling dice serves as the model for decaying particles.

Cosmic Ray, LHC Level 1 Half-Life/Mean Lifetime, Skill: Developing Models, Skill: Histograms, Spanish Language 2, 4, 5, 7
ttbar The Case of the Hidden Neutrino

Students use momentum conservation to examine the decay of top-antitop pairs to determine what is missing from the event.

LHC, Neutrino Level 1 Conservation Laws, Skill: Developing Models, Skill: Uncertainty, Spanish Language, Special Relativity, Standard Model 2, 4, 5, 6, 7
dpdx 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.

Neutrino Level 1 Kinematics, Quantum Mechanics, Skill: Developing Models, Skill: Graphing 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8