The Syracuse group hosted a 3-day Quarknet workshop from Aug 8 – 10, 2018 in the physics department at Syracuse University. Profs. Steven Blusk and Matt Rudolph hosted the event. This year, we had 8 teachers attend from the following school districts:

2017 Annual QuarkNet report for Syracuse University
Center name: Syracuse University, 6th year in QuarkNet.
Participants: 10 teachers from local area high schools + ~50 high school students for Masterclass
Program description: CMS e-Lab + Solar eclipse cosmic ray flux study
Mentors: Prof. Steven Blusk, Prof. Matt Rudolph
In March, the Syracuse University group was pleased to host two days of LHCb MasterClasses, which enabled
about 50 high school students from four different schools to learn about particle physics and the Large Hadron

Student name: Liam Meisner (Manlius Pebble Hill)
Teacher mentor: Justin Shute (Fayetteville-Manlius)
Research mentor: Dr. Xuhao Yuan (Syracuse University)
Summer 2017
The purpose of our research was to make precise measurements on a number of the
components to be used in the UT detector. The UT detector is composed of four planes of
silicon microstrip detectors, each roughly 1.5 m x 1.5 m in size. Each silicon plane is formed
from 14 (or 16) “staves”, and each stave is formed by mounting about fifteen 10 cm x 10 cm

Student name: Josh Owens (Fayetteville-Manlius)
Teacher mentor: Justin Shute (Fayetteville-Manlius)
Research mentor: Prof. Ray Mountain (Syracuse University)
Summer 2017
The purpose of our research was to fabricate a number of the “end-of-stave” mounts for the
UT upgrade project, and flesh out the quality assurance techniques that will be used to certify
them for the full detector. The UT detector is composed of four planes of silicon microstrip
detectors, each roughly 1.5 m x 1.5 m in size. Each silicon plane is formed from 14 (or 16)

August 21-23, 2017
Physics Building, Room 104 (Monday) & Room 208 (Tues-Wed)

Objectives

Participating teaches will be able to:

• Identify particles colliding and emerging from collisions at the LHC from CMS data.
• Interpret the physical meaning of plots created from CMS data in light of conservation rules (energy, momentum, charge).
• Ask and answer questions about the physics of high energy collisions using CMS data. 

We will also provide opportunities to engage in critical dialogue among teaching colleagues about what they learn in the workshop.

Agenda

Resources

• CMS

• ATLAS detector animation

• CMS detector overview

• Geometry of a collider detector

• LHC in 10 min

• Cosmic Ray Eclipse Project 2017

• Particle Cards Activity

Contacts

• Shane Wood, QuarkNet National Staff
• Steven Blusk, Syracuse mentor
• Mitch Soderberg, Syracuse mentor
• Matt Rudolph, Syracuse mentor

During 2016, the Syracuse University group was pleased to host two days of LHCb MasterClasses, which enabled about 55 high school students to learn about particle physics and the Large Hadron Collider. On each of two days, we hosted students and their teachers from two local area high schools. The four high schools are: Liverpool HS, Weedsport HS, Port Byron HS and Fayetteville Manlius HS. Students spent the morning attending presentations by Profs. Steven Blusk and Matthew Rudolph on particle physics and the LHC (see Fig 1 below).

 Fig. 1: Prof. Matt Rudolph describing the concept of time dilation (photo by Prof. Blusk).

In the afternoon, students were engaged in a computer-based activity where they had the opportunity to work with LHCb data. Feedback from teachers indicated the students enjoyed the day’s events.

Fig. 2: Students from Weedsport and Liverpool high schools in the computing lab working through an activity using LHCb data (photo by Prof. Blusk)

On July 6-7, we hosted a Quarknet workshop. We were pleased to welcome 7 new high school teachers to Quarknet, along with 1 “Quarknet veteran teacher” (see Fig. 3).

Fig. 3: Participants in the 2016 Quarknet workshop at Syracuse University: Bottom row: Shane Wood, Prof. Matt Rudolph, Prof. Steven Blusk, Prof. Mitch Soderberg. Top row: Alexa Perry, Patricia Madigan, Linda Wicks, Susanne Gardner, Anne Huntress, Stephanie Metz-Miller, Debbie Gremmelsbacher, Richard Heffernan, and Richard Adler.

We were also delighted to have Shane Wood and fellow Debbie Gremmelsbacher from Quarknet at the event. Shane did a spectacular job leading the CMS data workshop, which featured several hands-on and computer-based activities. Profs. Blusk, Rudolph and Soderberg also attended and provided support and facilitated discussions on various particle physics topics. The two-day program can be found at: /content/syracuse-cms-data-workshop-2016. Figure 4 shows some of the high school teachers working through the CMS data activity, along with Prof. Rudolph providing additional explanations of the data.

Fig. 4: High school teachers engaging in the CMS data workshop on July 6-7 at Syracuse University (photo by Prof. Blusk).

We expect many of the new teachers will return for future Quarknet activities. We also have a pool of about 10 additional teachers who expressed interest, but were not able to attend this summer.

Objectives

Participating teachers will:

• Apply classical physics principles to reduce or explain the observations in data investigations.
• Identify and describe ways that data are organized for determining any patterns that may exist in the data.
• Create, organize and interpret data plots; make claims based on evidence and provide explanations; identify data limitations.
• Develop a plan for taking students from their current level of data use to subsequent levels using activities and/or ideas from the workshop.

We will also provide opportunities to engage in critical dialogue among teaching colleagues about what they learn in the workshop.

Agenda

Times and specific activities are subject to adjustment.

July 13-14, 2015

Tiny URL for this page: http://tinyurl.com/cms-su15.

Objectives

Participating teachers will:

• Apply classical physics principles to reduce or explain the observations in data investigations.
• Identify and describe ways that data are organized for determining any patterns that may exist in the data.
• Create, organize and interpret data plots; make claims based on evidence and provide explanations; identify data limitations.
• Develop a plan for taking students from their current level of data use to subsequent levels using activities and/or ideas from the workshop.

We will also provide opportunities to engage in critical dialogue among teaching colleagues about what they learn in the workshop.

Draft Agenda

Times and specific activities are subject to adjustment.