Data Activities Portfolio
The Data Portfolio is a compendium of particle physics classroom activities organized by data strand and level of student engagement. 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. While each level can be explored individually, students who start in one level and progress to more complex levels experience increasingly engaging and challenging tasks. These activities are aligned with NGSS Standards, particularly NGSS Practices.
Your students can follow a path through activities in a data strand to better understand practices that lead to discovery. Each pathway provides connections between topics routinely covered in physics class and particle physics content and methods. Use the pulldown menus (Pathway and Strand) to find activities related to the content you are currently covering.
| Activity Name | Data Strand | Level | Pathway | NGSS Practices | Topic |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Mean Lifetime Part 3: MINERvA Students collect data from muons which decay in the MINERvA detector in the Fermilab NuMi beamline to understand particle decay and determine the muon lifetime. |
Cosmic Ray, Neutrino | Level 2 | Histograms, Mean Lifetime, Uncertainty | 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 | Data Analysis, Measurement, Particle Composition |
 Plotting LHC DiscoveryStudents explore features of mass plots of a well-understood particle and apply what they have learned to plots from new discoveries. |
LHC | Level 2 | Particle Collisions | 4, 6, 7 | Data Analysis, Momentum Conservation |
 CMS Masterclass J/PsiStudents 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. |
LHC | Level 2 | 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 | Data Analysis, Measurement, Momentum Conservation, Motion of Charged Particles, Particle Composition | |
 Cosmic Rays and the SunStudents search for a specific data file in the Cosmic Ray e-Lab and look for evidence of the passage of the sun in the flux measurements derived from this file. |
Cosmic Ray | Level 2 | Cosmic Muons, Uncertainty | 3, 4, 6, 7 | Data Analysis, Measurement, Student data |
 ATLAS Data ExpressATLAS Data Express is a short investigation in which students inspect and characterize Z events in the LHC and distinguish muons from electrons. |
LHC | Level 2 | Histograms, Particle Collisions, Uncertainty | 4, 5, 8 | Data Analysis, Measurement, Momentum Conservation |
 Mean Lifetime Part 2: Cosmic MuonsStudents learn how physicists measure muon lifetime. |
Cosmic Ray | Level 2 | Cosmic Muons, Histograms, Mean Lifetime | 2, 3, 4, 5 | Data Analysis, Measurement, Particle Composition, Student data |
 ALICE MasterclassStudents search for strange particles, produced from collisions at LHC and recorded by the ALICE experiment. |
LHC | Level 2 | Particle Collisions | 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 | Data Analysis |
 CMS Masterclass WZH-pathStudents 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. |
LHC | Level 2 | Histograms, Particle Collisions, Uncertainty | 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 | Data Analysis, Momentum Conservation |
 ATLAS Z-path MasterclassStudents are physicists for a day at a university or lab where they work with physiists to how to analyze real particle physics data in the form of event displays.
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LHC | Level 2 | Histograms, Particle Collisions, Uncertainty | 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 | Data Analysis |
 TOTEM Data ExpressUse quantum physics and LHC data to estimate the size of the proton. |
LHC | Level 2 | Histograms, Particle Collisions, Quantum Mechanics | 4, 5, 8 | Data Analysis, Measurement, Momentum Conservation, Other |