Syracuse University QuarkNet Center
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on Friday, September 13, 2013 - 09:06
Description
Welcome to the Syracuse University QuarkNet center. We meet on the campus of SU and serve teachers in the surrounding area.
Summer 2018 Quarknet Workshop at Syracuse University
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
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
Precision metrology tests for the UT upgrade
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
Fabrication & development of end-of-stave mounts for the UT upgrade
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)
2017 CMS e-Lab Workshop @ Syracuse
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
Monday August 21
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Tuesday August 22
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Resources
Contacts
- Shane Wood, QuarkNet National Staff
- Steven Blusk, Syracuse mentor
- Mitch Soderberg, Syracuse mentor
- Matt Rudolph, Syracuse mentor
2016 Annual Quarknet report for Syracuse University
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.
Syracuse 2016 Implementation Plans
Syracuse CMS Data Workshop 2016
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.
Wednesday 6 July08:30 Coffee, Registration, and Daily Opener 08:45 Introduction/Objectives/Overview/Data Porfolio 09:00 Presentation: CMS and LHC Run II (See attached presentation) 10:00 Break 10:15 Level 1 Data Portfolio Activities Each group does both of these: Each group chooses one of these: Short reflection after each activity. 12:00 Lunch 13:00 Lab Tour 13:30 Level 2 Data Portfolio Activity: 14:30 Reflections on Activities, Implementation Discussion 15:00 QN Teacher Survey 15:30 End of Day |
Thursday 7 July08:30 Coffee/Recap of Yesterday/Plan for Today 09:00 Lab Tour 09:30 Level 2 Data Portfolio Activitiy: CMS Masterclass Measurement 11:30 Reflection on Activity and Discussion 12:00 Lunch 13:00 Level 3 Data Portfolio Activitiy Exploration: CMS e-Lab 14:00 Reflection on Activity and Discussion 14:30 Implementation Plans (Post to website) 15:00 Evaluation
15:30 Close
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Resources |
Contacts |
Syracuse University QuarkNet Summer 2015 Workshop Annual Report
Syracuse University QuarkNet mentors Steve Blusk and Mitch Soderberg organized a 4-day long workshop, held in the Physics Department from Monday, July 13 - Thursday, July 16. The workshop featured a combination of MasterClass activities and explorations with cosmic-ray detectors. This year there were 3 participants of the workshop (Joshua Buchman, Michael Madden, and Justin Shute), with the lower attendance attributable to several of our regular participants being unable to attend. In spite of the low attendance, many fruitful activities were pursued, and the participating teachers expressed continued enthusiasm about the QuarkNet program.
Days 1-2 of the workshop were led by Shane Wood from QuarkNet, who guided our teachers through the CMS MasterClass. Mr. Wood created a webpage with an agenda for these days of the workshop, which can be found at: /page/ cms-data-workshop-syracuse. Activities conducted during these days were:
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Presentation by Mitch Soderberg on the CMS experiment and they physics of interest post-Higgs discovery.
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Rolling with Rutherford and Quark Workbench “hands-on” activities.
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Investigations with CMS data and web-based tools.
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Discussion and development of implementation plans.
Days 3-4 of the workshop were led by Mitch Soderberg, and focused on explorations with cosmic-ray detectors that the participating teachers had built in prior years. Activities pursued during these days included:
- Using detectors to search for “shower” events, where detectors are operated in an array geometry as opposed to a stacked geometry. Data from these searches were uploaded to the e-lab site, and subsequent analysis was performed to look for coincidence of shower events between different detectors.
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Using detectors to measure the speed of cosmic muons. This was accomplished by separating pairs of scintillator paddles by ∼2 meters, and attempting to measure the time delay between 4-fold coincident events. The teachers found that the e-lab site didn’t seem to have tools for this type of investigation, so they developed their own method for importing the raw text files from the detectors into an Excel spreadsheet and then determining the time delay. Subsequent inquiry led to a version of the Java software from Purdue with a “Muon Lifetime” component that made this activity much simpler.
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Measurement of the muon lifetime.
CMS Data Workshop Syracuse
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.
Monday 13 July08:30 Coffee, Registration, and Daily Opener 08:45 Introduction/Objectives/Overview/Data Porfolio 09:00 Presentation: CMS and LHC Run II 10:00 Break 10:15 Level 1 Data Portfolio Activities Each group does both of these: Each group chooses one of these: Short reflection after each activity. 12:00 Lunch 13:00 Level 2 Data Portfolio Activity: 14:30 Reflections on Activities and Discussion 15:00 Implementation Plans 15:30 End of Day |
Tuesday 14 July08:30 Coffee/Recap of Yesterday/Plan for Today 09:00 Virtual Visit 09:30 Level 2 Data Portfolio Activitiy: CMS Masterclass Measurement 11:30 Reflection on Activity and Discussion 12:00 Lunch 13:00 Level 3 Data Portfolio Activitiy Exploration: CMS e-Lab 14:00 Reflection on Activity and Discussion 14:15 Implementation plans 14:45 Reports and Discussion 15:15 Implementation Survey and Evaluation 15:30 Close
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Resources |
Contacts |