Purpose –This experiment gave hands-on experience collecting & interpreting data from muon detectors. These detectors were supplied by Howard Matis of LBL.  Students had had no previous experience with the detectors.

 

Methods –Before working with the detectors, students viewed a video about special relativity & muon decay on their own.  The two hour formal session started with a 30 min power point presentation on what cosmic rays are and how we detect them.  Then, students were shown a high voltage gas detector.  Followed by a discussion, students were trained on how to use the detectors.  There were 9 groups comprised of 4 students and 1 teacher.  Each group had its own detector.  Each group designed a brief experiment.  These experiments ranged from tilting the detectors to get a different count to shielding experiments using different floors in a building. The experiment that most groups did was going to different levels of the building to see if the counts change due to shielding.    

 

Results -  Each group recorded their data and presented their findings informally. Because of time constraints, there was no formally written data shared with the entire group. Some groups did mention specific numbers of muon counts.  There was a discussion covering the causes of the difference in counts. Their counts in the upper floors of the building were more than the lower floors.

 

There was also a discussion on why the two detectors had different counts which lead to an explanation which covered the role voltage plays in the sensitivity of the paddles.  Too high of a voltage gives a runaway count, too low of a voltage gives no count. 

 

Meaning & future investigations - Cosmic rays have played a large role in the development of Particle Physics.  The muon as well as antimatter were first detected by cosmic ray investigations.  Students had also had a presentation on Cosmic Rays & the ICE Cube experiment. This activity gave the students a first-hand experience in understanding & working with particles and helped them make connections with larger research experiments. Further investigations could include continuing to study the different shielding materials, different elevations of detection, & the effects of magnetic fields on the detector as well as the earth’s magnetic field.  

 

 

Participating Teachers:

Adams	Ray                      retired
Becker	Philip                 Freedom H.S.
Eldred	Craig                  Terra Linda H.S.
Galloway	Erin                     Alameda H.S.
Guthrie	Laura                  Acalanes H.S.
Kerrigan	Laurie                 Mercy, S.F.
Louie	Justin                  Novato H.S.
Marten	Bryan                  Lowell H.S.
Melnik	Glen                     Piedmont H.S.
Noblejas	Jeffrey                  St. Ignatius H.S.
Piccioni	Richard                 The Bay School
Risk	Valerie                   Albany H.S.

Participating Students

Alvarado	Natasha
Ben-Ora	Kelden
Brunell	Geoffrey
Chen	Kevin
DaSilva	Rakesh
Dellert	Maeve
Fang-Horvath	Hallie
Fang-Horvath	Sierra
Fuentes	Jose (Tripp)
Gallardo	Robert
Garcia Vilchis	Monica
Gerson	Jessica
Guerrero	Neo
Guinasso	Danielle
Hahn	Beatrice
Ho	Nathan
Iwata	Mana
Jagabattuni	Sakuntala
King	Miles
Lyons	Christian
McClellan	Jack
Morrell	Bryant
Ngai	Audrey
Potter	Emma
Riley	Jack
Scottland	Dominic
Sharpe	Katherine
Tierney	Mary (Amelia)
To	Vivian
Vallat	Morgan
Wang	Rosetta
Wu	Danny
Zhang	Arthur

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

June 27-28, 2017

Agenda

Tuesday June 21

Wednesday June 22

08:30    Greetings  08:45    Icebreaker: Particle Cards 09:15    Rolling with Rutherford Histogram 09:45    Break 10:00    Introduction to  ATLAS and Particle Physics (Heather Gray) 11:30     Lunch QuarkNet teacher meeting: Registration Implementation survey Discuss possible academic year meetings QN Q&A 12:45    Intro to ATLAS Masterclass measurement Slides Cheat sheet Demo You do it! 13:15    ATLAS Z-path measurement 14:15    Break 14:30    Discuss results; Q&A 15:00    Cosmology and Dark Energy (Kyle Boone) 16:00    End of day

08:30   Greetings 08:45    CERN Virtual Visit 09:10    end of masterclass activities

 

Resources

Masterclass	General
International Masterclasses ATLAS Masterclass site Hypatia download Group 1 Data Group 2 Data OPloT	QuarkNet and CMS e-Lab CERN Open Data ATLAS website ATLAS boogie Large Hadron Rap LHC in 10 minutes LBNL QuarkNet group Contact Ken

 

Getting ready for the masterclass

In general:

• Students work in teams of two
• We will divide the teams into Group 1 and Group 2
• Each team will have a unique letter; thus a team might be 1A or 2C.

Installing Hypatia:

• Create a desktop folder called "Hypatia"
• Download Hypatia into the desktop
• Unzip Hypatia
• Test it by choosing Hypatia_7.4_Masterclass.jar inside the folder
• If 4 windows open, it works!

Installing your dataset:

• Go to the Group 1 or Group 2 page (based on your group)
• Find your group letter in the page and choose that dataset (e.g. if you are in team 1D, fo to group 1 and download dataset D)
• Download to the Hypatia folder; it will be a zip file but you do not need to unzip it

Starting to analyze your data

• Open Hypatia unless it is already open
• In the Track Momenta Window, open the "floppy disk" icon just below the top left
• A file-opening window will appear; use it to navigate to your data in the Hypatia folder
• Choose the dataset.

Uploading to OPlot (first you must save your results)

• When you are done analyzing, go to the Invariant Mass Window and choose File at the top left
• A menu appears; choose Export Invariant Masses
• Go to OPloT
• Find the student section and log in (we will give you the username and password)
• Choose today's date, Berkeley, and your team number and letter; it will take you to a new screen
• Use the "Choose File" button to find the file you saveed
• Choose  the "Submit" button to upload it

 

For teachers

• Registration
• Implementation survey

                          Cosmic Ray Detector Experiments      LBNL 2016

Students

Adly	Armin
Auchard	Brock
Ayala	Natalie
Bohan	Patrick
Brown	MacKenzie
Chan	Ka Chun (Joe)
Carr	Allison
Cheung	Windfield
Choi	Becky
Coen	Kelsey
Cook	Nathan
Cooper	Nicolas
De Petris	Nicole
Deshpande	Saadhana
Duong	Aivy
Gonzalez Corona	Eric
Grobeck	Devin
Groth	Emily
Hopcraft	Connor
Ianora	Isabella
Jaber	Nicholas
Kalil	Madeline
Kingdon	Noah
Kushner	Luca
Liu	Shojeh
Lowe	Jenna
Mariano	Leannah
McTiernan	Joseph
Nguyen	Caroline
Nguyen	Isabelle
Osborn	Katie
Philliber	Theo
Pinthapataya	Anya
Scheuer	Espen
Shin	Taeggin
Stripling	Mia
Tiano	Elicia
Tom	Zachary
Wang	Jim
Weber	Natalie

 

Teachers                                                                                                    High School

Adams	Ray	retired
Becker	Philip	Las Lomas High
Carlson	Michael	Alameda High
Cooke	Paul	Blue Oak School
Cooper	Susan	Haward
Eldred	Craig	Terra Linda
Garrison	Glenn	Blue Oak School
Guthrie	Laura	Alcalanes
Kerrigan	Laurie	Mercy, S. F.
Marten	Bryan	Lowell
Melnik	Glen	Piedmont
Risk	Valerie	Albany H S
Turney	Kayla	Castro Valley

 

 

Purpose –The purpose of this experiment was for students to have hands on experience collecting & interpreting data from muon detectors. Students have had no previous experience using detectors. These detectors were supplied by Howard Matis of LBL.

 

Methods – The experiment was broken up between two days.  There were 10 teams, each with 4 students, 1 teacher & 1 detector.  The first day, students learned how to use the detectors & were asked to design a brief experiment.  These experiments ranged from tilting the detectors to get a different count to shielding experiments using different floors in a building. One interesting experiment that two groups conducted at different times were to place a bag of ice on the detectors. Both groups got an increase in muon counts.

 

Results  -  The data was recorded to various degrees, by each group.  Because of time constraints, there was no formally written data shared with the entire group. There was a debriefing with a discussion of the results in general terms. Some groups did mention specific numbers of muon counts.  Each group that carried out the angle experiment had results that confirmed that you would get less counts if the paddles were vertical. There was a discussion covering the causes of the difference in counts depending upon the orientation in a given detector.  Each group saw there was a much higher count when the paddles were orientated horizontally as opposed to vertically.  This difference provided confidence that muons were detected, not just electrical noise.

     There was also a discussion on why the two detectors had different counts which lead to an explanation which covered the role voltage plays in the sensitivity of the paddles.  Too high of a voltage gives a runaway count, too low of a voltage gives no count. 

 

      One group tried to use the entire magnetic field of the earth, using the right hand rule to see if there were more counts facing west compared to east. General consensus of that group was that they count more counts when facing west.  But they were trying to combine this with a tilting experiment so there were too many variables to have a valid result.

     The surprising result of the ice on the detector may have been due to the whole detector’s resistance was lowered allowing for a larger count.  Another possible explanation was that muons were hitting the ice which created a shower of electrons into the paddles.                    

 

Meaning & future investigations - Cosmic rays have played a large role in the development of Particle Physics.  The muon as well as antimatter were first detected by cosmic ray investigations.

This activity gave the students a first-hand experience in understanding & working with particles. Working with detectors also helped the students understand the collection of subatomic particles importance on much larger scales such as in SNO+ experiment.

      Further investigations could include continuing to study the different shielding materials,  different elevations of detection, & the effects of magnetic fields on the detector as well as the earth’s magnetic field.

 

 

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Annual Report 2016 

July 6, 2016

                                                                 

Mentors: Tony Spadafora, Alex Kim, & Alessandra Ciocio

Workshop Coordinator: Laurie Kerrigan

Co- Organizer: Ken Cecire (QuarkNet)

 

The LBNL Physics Division hosted its tenth “Physics in and Through Cosmology” workshop for QuarkNet Leadership teachers and high school students. The five-day workshop from June 20 to June 24, 2016 was held at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.  Thirteen science teachers participated. Five of the teachers have been active members of QuarkNet for five or more years. Six new teachers joined the group this year.  There were 40 students with approximately equal number of boys and girls. The teachers & students represented public and private high schools in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. 

 

 

The first day focused on getting all participants familiar with concepts & terms in particle physics & cosmology.  This was accomplished through “mini” lectures given by returning QuarkNet teachers & Blake Sherwin, an LBNL researcher.  The LBNL 88” cyclotron was also toured.

 

 

The other days consisted of hands-on warm-up activities, a morning scientist talk and an afternoon talk.  Between talks, groups worked on hands-on experiments (e.g. QuarkNet activities lead by Ken Cecire using data from ATLAS).   Participants also discussed the lectures.  They had a virtual tour of the ATLAS Control Room at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (with more Q&A about Supersymmetry), and viewed Alessandra Ciocio’s  ATLAS SCT Cable Installation and Detector Connection video.  There were also tours of the ALS (Advanced Light Source) and Molecular Foundry research facilities at LBNL.    

 

Groups designed & carried out experiments with Cosmic Ray Detectors.  Each group consisted of four students and one teacher.

                                                           

 

Teachers meet with Ken Cecire over lunch on the second day to discuss QuarkNet.

                 

Formal presentations included:

Standard Model and Higgs - Robert Clarke

 

Beyond the Standard Model, Exotics and Searches - Jennet Dickinson

 

ATLAS masterclass measurement  - Ken Cecire

 

Surprise drop in by Saul Perlmutter                                           

 

Supernova - Clare Saunders

 

Dark Matter - Peter Sorensen

 

CMB -   Darcy Barron

 

LIGO gravitational waves - Brett Noah Shapiro 

 

Rocket Science -  George Smoot

 

Cosmic Rays - Spencer Klein

 

Panel Discussion  -  Darcy Barron, Alex Kim, Spencer Klein, Brett Noah Shapiro

 

                          

 

 

On the last day students completed a self- evaluation of how much they learned about science concepts during the workshop. They used a scale of 1 (nothing) to 5 (a lot).

 

The overall average for all of the students for all of the concepts was 4.0 with a standard deviation of 0.54

 

The two concepts with the highest overall evaluation of 4.54 were:

      According to the Big Bang Theory the Universe has expanded from initial conditions of   

              being very small, hot and dense.

     The Cosmic Microwave background is the baby picture of the Universe when matter &

             energy decoupled

 

Others that received high marks were:

     The Universe is approximately 5% atomic matter, 20% dark matter, and 75% dark energy.  

               4.49

      Cosmic rays interact with material on Earth.    4.49

      Space itself is expanding.    4.46

      Supernovae are the explosions of dying stars, and certain types can serve as a standard

            candle.   4.43

      Know that when an observation does not agree with an accepted scientific theory, the

           observation is sometimes mistaken or fraudulent (e.g., the Piltdown Man fossil or

           unidentified flying objects) and that the theory is sometimes wrong (e.g., the Ptolemaic

           model of the movement of the Sun, Moon, and planets).     4.43

      Recognize the issues of statistical variability and the need for controlled tests.    4.32

      Analyze situations and solve problems that require combining and applying concepts

           from more than one area of science.     4.32

      Quarks have color & flavor & make up protons & neutrons.   4.24

 

    

                                                                                          

Some comments by the students and teachers include:

Honestly, I learned more in this 1-week period than I did in most full-year science

classes I’ve taken. (student)

I liked seeing all the science labs, and seeing actual scientists doing research.  I learned

much about outer space and molecular physics, which I enjoyed because high school

barely covers these topics. (student)

I learned a great deal about current cosmological & particle physics research. (teacher)

It piqued my interest into particle physics.  (student)

This definitely opened my mind more about the world around.  Before I was taught that

     atoms were essentially the smallest unit of matter or whatever and that they couldn’t

     be broken down, but, now I know that there’s a whole set of new   particles!  (student)

I loved learning from experts and being able to ask the difficult questions that my high

     school teachers wouldn’t know.  (student)

I learned a lot about space from the very large scale universe physics to particle physics,

      and the experience was definitely useful in deciding what I would like to study in

       college.  (student)

I learned more in this one week than I usually learn in a month.  (student)

 

Participating Teachers:

 

Adams	Ray	retired
Becker	Philip	Las Lomas High
Carlson	Michael	Alameda High
Cooke	Paul	Blue Oak School
Cooper	Susan	Haward
Eldred	Craig	Terra Linda
Garrison	Glenn	Blue Oak School
Guthrie	Laura	Alcalanes
Kerrigan	Laurie	Mercy, S. F.
Marten	Bryan	Lowell
Melnik	Glen	Piedmont
Risk	Valerie	Albany H S
Turney	Kayla	Castro Valley

 

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Annual Report 2016 

July 6, 2016

                                                                 

Mentors: Tony Spadafora, Alex Kim, & Alessandra Ciocio

Workshop Coordinator: Laurie Kerrigan

Co- Organizer: Ken Cecire (QuarkNet)

 

The LBNL Physics Division hosted its tenth “Physics in and Through Cosmology” workshop for QuarkNet Leadership teachers and high school students. The five-day workshop from June 20 to June 24, 2016 was held at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.  Thirteen science teachers participated. Five of the teachers have been active members of QuarkNet for five or more years. Six new teachers joined the group this year.  There were 40 students with approximately equal number of boys and girls. The teachers & students represented public and private high schools in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. 

 

 

The first day focused on getting all participants familiar with concepts & terms in particle physics & cosmology.  This was accomplished through “mini” lectures given by returning QuarkNet teachers & Blake Sherwin, an LBNL researcher.  The LBNL 88” cyclotron was also toured.

 

 

The other days consisted of hands-on warm-up activities, a morning scientist talk and an afternoon talk.  Between talks, groups worked on hands-on experiments (e.g. QuarkNet activities lead by Ken Cecire using data from ATLAS).   Participants also discussed the lectures.  They had a virtual tour of the ATLAS Control Room at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (with more Q&A about Supersymmetry), and viewed Alessandra Ciocio’s  ATLAS SCT Cable Installation and Detector Connection video.  There were also tours of the ALS (Advanced Light Source) and Molecular Foundry research facilities at LBNL.    

 

Groups designed & carried out experiments with Cosmic Ray Detectors.  Each group consisted of four students and one teacher.

                                                           

 

Teachers meet with Ken Cecire over lunch on the second day to discuss QuarkNet.

                 

Formal presentations included:

Standard Model and Higgs - Robert Clarke

 

Beyond the Standard Model, Exotics and Searches - Jennet Dickinson

 

ATLAS masterclass measurement  - Ken Cecire

 

Surprise drop in by Saul Perlmutter                                           

 

Supernova - Clare Saunders

 

Dark Matter - Peter Sorensen

 

CMB -   Darcy Barron

 

LIGO gravitational waves - Brett Noah Shapiro 

 

Rocket Science -  George Smoot

 

Cosmic Rays - Spencer Klein

 

Panel Discussion  -  Darcy Barron, Alex Kim, Spencer Klein, Brett Noah Shapiro

 

                          

 

 

On the last day students completed a self- evaluation of how much they learned about science concepts during the workshop. They used a scale of 1 (nothing) to 5 (a lot).

 

The overall average for all of the students for all of the concepts was 4.0 with a standard deviation of 0.54

 

The two concepts with the highest overall evaluation of 4.54 were:

      According to the Big Bang Theory the Universe has expanded from initial conditions of   

              being very small, hot and dense.

     The Cosmic Microwave background is the baby picture of the Universe when matter &

             energy decoupled

 

Others that received high marks were:

     The Universe is approximately 5% atomic matter, 20% dark matter, and 75% dark energy.  

               4.49

      Cosmic rays interact with material on Earth.    4.49

      Space itself is expanding.    4.46

      Supernovae are the explosions of dying stars, and certain types can serve as a standard

            candle.   4.43

      Know that when an observation does not agree with an accepted scientific theory, the

           observation is sometimes mistaken or fraudulent (e.g., the Piltdown Man fossil or

           unidentified flying objects) and that the theory is sometimes wrong (e.g., the Ptolemaic

           model of the movement of the Sun, Moon, and planets).     4.43

      Recognize the issues of statistical variability and the need for controlled tests.    4.32

      Analyze situations and solve problems that require combining and applying concepts

           from more than one area of science.     4.32

      Quarks have color & flavor & make up protons & neutrons.   4.24

 

    

                                                                                          

Some comments by the students and teachers include:

Honestly, I learned more in this 1-week period than I did in most full-year science

classes I’ve taken. (student)

I liked seeing all the science labs, and seeing actual scientists doing research.  I learned

much about outer space and molecular physics, which I enjoyed because high school

barely covers these topics. (student)

I learned a great deal about current cosmological & particle physics research. (teacher)

It piqued my interest into particle physics.  (student)

This definitely opened my mind more about the world around.  Before I was taught that

     atoms were essentially the smallest unit of matter or whatever and that they couldn’t

     be broken down, but, now I know that there’s a whole set of new   particles!  (student)

I loved learning from experts and being able to ask the difficult questions that my high

     school teachers wouldn’t know.  (student)

I learned a lot about space from the very large scale universe physics to particle physics,

      and the experience was definitely useful in deciding what I would like to study in

       college.  (student)

I learned more in this one week than I usually learn in a month.  (student)

 

Participating Teachers:

 

Adams	Ray	retired
Becker	Philip	Las Lomas High
Carlson	Michael	Alameda High
Cooke	Paul	Blue Oak School
Cooper	Susan	Haward
Eldred	Craig	Terra Linda
Garrison	Glenn	Blue Oak School
Guthrie	Laura	Alcalanes
Kerrigan	Laurie	Mercy, S. F.
Marten	Bryan	Lowell
Melnik	Glen	Piedmont
Risk	Valerie	Albany H S
Turney	Kayla	Castro Valley

 

 

June 21-22, 2016

Agenda

Tuesday June 21

Wednesday June 22

08:30    Greetings  08:45    Icebreaker and Particle Cards 09:15    Quark Puzzle and Rolling with Rutherford Histogram 09:45    Break 10:00    Intro talk on ATLAS and Particle Physics I 10:30    Mass Calc Z Histogram online scientific calculator 11:30    Intro talk on ATLAS and Particle Physics II 12:00   Lunch QuarkNet teacher meeting: Registration (http://tinyurl.com/qnw15reg) Implementation survey Discuss possible academic year meetings QN Q&A 13:00    Intro to ATLAS Masterclass measurement Slides Demo You do it! 13:45    ATLAS Z-path measurement 14:45    Break 15:00    Discuss results; Q&A 16:00    End of day

08:30   Greetings 08:40    ATLAS Virtual Visit 09:10    end of masterclass

 

Resources

Masterclass	General
International Masterclasses ATLAS Masterclass site Hypatia download Group 1 Data Group 2 Data OPloT	QuarkNet and CMS e-Lab CERN Open Data ATLAS website ATLAS boogie Large Hadron Rap LHC in 10 minutes LBNL QuarkNet group Contact Ken

 

Getting ready for the masterclass

In general:

• Students work in teams of two
• We will divide the teams into Group 1 and Group 2
• Each team will have a unique letter; thus a team might be 1A or 2C.

Installing Hypatia:

• Create a desktop folder called "Hypatia"
• Download Hypatia into the desktop
• Unzip Hypatia
• Test it by choosing Hypatia_7.4_Masterclass.jar inside the folder
• If 4 windows open, it works!

Installing your dataset:

• Go to the Group 1 or Group 2 page (based on your group)
• Find your group letter in the page and choose that dataset (e.g. if you are in team 1D, fo to group 1 and download dataset D)
• Download to the Hypatia folder; it will be a zip file but you do not need to unzip it

Starting to analyze your data

• Open Hypatia unless it is already open
• In the Track Momenta Window, open the "floppy disk" icon just below the top left
• A file-opening window will appear; use it to navigate to your data in the Hypatia folder
• Choose the dataset.

Uploading to OPlot (first you must save your results)

• When you are done analyzing, go to the Invariant Mass Window and choose File at the top left
• A menu appears; choose Export Invariant Masses
• Go to OPloT
• Find the student section and log in (we will give you the username and password)
• Choose today's date, Berkeley, and your team number and letter; it will take you to a new screen
• Use the "Choose File" button to find the file you saveed
• Choose  the "Submit" button to upload it

 

Mentors: Tony Spadafora & Alex Kim

Workshop Coordinator: Laurie Kerrigan

 

The LBNL Physics Division hosted its ninth “Physics In and Through Cosmology” workshop for QuarkNet Leadership teachers and high school students. The five day workshop from June 22 to June 26 was held at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab.  Ten science teachers participated. Five of the teachers have been active members of QuarkNet for five or more years. Three new teachers joined the group this year.  The QuarkNet Teachers and 42 students represented public and private high schools in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. 

 

The first day focused on getting all participants familiar with concepts & terms in particle physics & cosmology.  This was accomplished through “mini” lectures given by returning QuarkNet teachers & two LBL researchers: Alex Kim and Danny Mittelberger.

 

The daily format consisted of a hands-on warm-up activity, a morning scientist talk and an afternoon talk.  Between talks, groups worked on hands-on experiments (e.g. QuarkNet acitivty lead by Ken Cecire using data from ATLAS), discussed the lecture, and toured the ALS (Advanced Light Source) and Molecular Foundry research facilities.  Groups also designed & carried out experiments with Cosmic Ray Detectors.  Each group consisted of five to six students and one teacher. 

 

Teachers also meet with Ken Cecire over lunch on the second day to discuss QuarkNet.