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 (Curriculum Topics and Strand) to find activities related to the content you are currently covering. Watch this screencast to learn more about sorting these activities.

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Activity Name Data Strand Level Curriculum Topics NGSS Practices
CMS Masterclass J/Psi

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.

 LHC Level 2 Conservation Laws, Nature of Matter, Skill: Histograms, Skill: Uncertainty 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Making it ‘Round the Bend - Quantitative

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

 LHC Level 2 Electricity & Magnetism, Instrumentation, Skill: Developing Models, Skill: Graphing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
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 Half-Life/Mean Lifetime, Kinematics, Nature of Matter, Skill: Developing Models, Skill: Histograms, Skill: Uncertainty 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8
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.

 LHC Level 2 Conservation Laws, Nature of Matter, Skill: Histograms, Skill: Uncertainty 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
QuarkNet STEP UP Women in Physics

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

 Level 2 Diversity & Inclusion
Cosmic Ray e-Lab

Students experience the excitement of scientific collaboration in this series of investigations into high-energy cosmic rays.

 Cosmic Ray Level 3 Instrumentation, Nature of Matter, Skill: Developing Models, Skill: Histograms, Skill: Uncertainty 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
CMS e-Lab

Students have an opportunity to learn how to analyze data to calibrate the CMS detector and participate in discovery science (as particle physicists do).

 LHC Level 3 Conservation Laws, Instrumentation, Nature of Matter, Skill: Histograms, Skill: Uncertainty 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Research Using Coding

This activity provides techniques for guiding students doing an independent research project.

Cosmic Ray, LHC, Neutrino Level 4 Skill: Coding, Skill: Developing Models 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8