Data Camp 2025

All day

Check in at the hotel (map and hotel website)

Residence Inn by Marriott

28500 Bella Vista Pkwy

Warrenville, IL 60555

630-393-3444

7 - 9 PM

Meet campers and Quarknet Fellows in the hotel lobby between 7-8 PM for an introductory activity (~1.5 hour) and bring your laptop.

• Activity: How We Roll (adapted from Dice Histograms, an activity available on the Quarknet website) in groups of 3
• Momentum Check
  • Solution Set to #1-4 and Momentum tutorial for folks who might need some reminders
• Loaner laptop distribution
• Stipend and per diem payment form
• Register for the workshop (this goes to Quarknet central) and fill out the Contact Info form (this goes to us and will not be shared with anyone.)
• If you do not already have an account at quarknet.org, tell Jeremy and he can create one for you. Once you have an account, here’s a guide for setting up your own profile.
• Bring closed-toe shoes tomorrow for the tour.
• Review Milestone 0
• We have a “guided note page” document for tomorrow’s introductory talk. If you want a paper copy, you can use the hotel’s business center to print it. Alternatively, you can print out the slides (PDF version here) from a previous version of the talk.
• Optional: if you’d like to take the graduate course offered by U. of St. Francis, you can find the info about their “experiential courses” here and directions to register  here (course description  here.
• Complete  the annual Quarknet teacher survey, if you didn’t already do it at a QN meeting or workshop this year. There are two versions, so read carefully: 
  • If you’ve already done the full survey in 2024 or 2025 (in your local center’s meeting or a different camp), you only need to complete the update survey (en Español aquí). Est. 6min.
  • If you didn’t yet do the full survey in 2024 or 2025, do this one instead.

6:15 - 7:00

Eat breakfast and then look downward to check whether you are wearing closed-toe shoes.

7:00

Meet in hotel lobby to prep ride arrangements

7:15

Depart hotel lobby for carpool to Fermilab’s Wilson Hall (map). A few minutes after entering the lab campus, look for the herd of bison to your right.

 7:30 - 8:00

Gain entry to premises. This may take a while.

Stop by the Housing Office (map) to pick up visitor badges

If time permits:

1. Register for the workshop if you haven’t already

2. Complete  the annual Quarknet teacher survey. There are two versions, so read 2a and 2b carefully:  

2a. If you’ve already done the full survey in 2023 or 2024 (in your local center’s meeting or a different camp), you only need to complete the update survey. Est. 6min.

2b. If you didn’t yet do the full survey in 2023 or 2024, do this one instead. Est 15 min.

3. If interested,you can also register for the graduate course.

8:00 - 9:15

Introductions, welcome activities (Black Hole, Wilson Hall 2nd floor crossover)

Welcome (Jeremy & Spencer)

Paperwork (Peter)

• Sign-in sheets
• If you do not already have an account at quarknet.org, tell Jeremy and he can create one for you. Once you have an account, here’s a guide for setting up your own profile.
• Register for this workshop if you haven’t already.
• Emergency procedures and contact form.
  • If you don’t have a Gmail account already, create one here. 

Hopes and fears survey (Jodi)

• View responses anonymously here
• Hopes & Fears Word Cloud

Group norms (Tiff)

• What themes do you notice in the hopes & fears?
• Why are we here?
• Take a look at the norms from StepUp and Fermilab.

Our Data Camp Norms

9:20 - 10:00

Quark Workbench Activity

Walk to Curia II for Guest Speaker`

10:00 - 11:45

Guest Speaker: Dr. Ricardo Escobar, Univ. of Illinois-Chicago. Topic: The Standard Model and the CMS Experiment

• Slides (PDF)
• The Particle Physics 101 Note Page (as requested, answer key is here!)
• Gluon Color Article (Forbes)
• Detecting Particles at CMS

11:45 - 12:45

Lunch at Wilson Hall Atrium

12:45 - 1:30

Intro to Coding - Theta - Phi Notebook (reassurance: don’t worry about understanding all the lines of code 😀)

1:30 - 3:00

Tour of Wilson Hall 15th floor / driving tour - Meet in Atrium entrance at 1:15 with closed-toe shoes

After the Tour we will drive to our home base at the lab for the week - Building 327

3:00 - 4:30

(in 327)

• Broken Squares Activity  -  link to these documents
• Finish  Theta - Phi Notebook if you haven’t shown one of the fellows a cool histogram
• Intro to Data Analysis - Top Quark

4:30

All-hands meeting

•  daily feedback survey we review your feedback daily - please be honest/frank with warm + cool

After 5:00

Optional - Lou Malnati’s Pizza in Naperville . Mondays aren’t usually busy, but we suggest once you have your group, call ahead to join the waiting list.  If you can decide on a Deep Dish pizza to order - ordering that ahead makes your wait time a little shorter, too.

Evening at Hotel

Highly recommended: meet in lobby with milestone working group, relax, have a beverage/cocktail, and look over the Milestone 1 tasks. Get to know your particle.

Fellows will also be in the lobby later to answer questions and help out if needed.

 8:30 - 9:15

Arrive at 327, all hands meeting. Topics:

• Debrief Theta/Phi notebook
  • Helpful graphic for the Theta/Phi exercise: https://cds.cern.ch/record/2705998/files/CMS.png
• General Q&A for particle physics or detector specifics
• Brief discussion of APS from Adam LaMee lamee@aps.org
  • PhysTEC: teacher prep project, email list sign up

9:15 - 10:00

Walk to IARC for CERN virtual visit at 9:30

CERN Virtual Visit (YouTube link to the entire visit - will be posted afterwards)

Want to see the live web page showing LHC status? Click here!

• Cool video showing some of the LHC parts and process - feel free to download and use it!
• Check out another cool video on data collection at the LHC
• Schedule a Virtual Visit for your own classroom!! (minimum 30 participants)

10:30 - 12:45

Back to 327 - Main analysis task: CMS Calibration

• Overview of CMS (ppt) and CERN CMS page
• You may want to finish / revisit - Intro to Data Analysis - Top Quark
• Other Supplemental activities are in the Data Portfolio.
• Work towards Milestone 1 Seminar
  • All group members must participate in the seminar before moving on to the next milestone.
• Still confused about mass, momentum, and energy all being in GeV?
• Here is a cool downloadable video showing some of the hardware in the LHC! (youtube link here)

12:45 - 1:45

Lunch at Wilson Hall (Users meeting lunch break runs until 12:45, so be aware)

Be back at 327 by 1:45 for our next tour

1:50 - 2:30

SQMS Tour - Meet docents at IARC  with closed-toe shoes; at 2:00

2:30 - 4:30

Back to 327

Work time with particle groups: complete histograms, apply various cuts and analyses, search for other signals etc. Work towards Milestone 1 seminar.

4:30

All-hands meeting

•  daily feedback survey

After 5

Some options:

• Top Golf Naperville - half price Tuesday $29.50/hr for one bay for up to 6 people; they do serve beverages and food (about 10 min drive from hotel)
• Warren’s Ale House - Pub Trivia at 7PM (about 10 min drive from hotel)
• Kane County Cougars (tickets) 

Evening at hotel

If a group has not completed their Milestone 1 seminar, plan on doing so in the lobby.

 8:30 - 8:45

Arrive at 327, all-hands meeting

9:00 - 11:00

Milestone 2 Work time on your particle: complete histograms, apply various cuts and analyses, search for other signals etc. 

Before Lunch:

Make a copy of the particle questions doc. You’ll need these answers for your work after lunch

“Same Particle” Meeting: mass plot discussion with your particle group that had the other dilepton dataset - during this time, discuss results from your group, then answer as many  follow-up “particle specific” questions as you have time for.

11:00 - 12:00

Lunch

Eat Lunch at Wilson Hall Atrium (try to eat between 11:00-11:50 to avoid Users Meeting rush)

12:15 - 1:00

Milestone 2 Presentation Work

1:00 - 1:30

Make a copy of the particle questions doc. You’ll need these answers for your work after lunch

“Same Particle” Meeting: mass plot discussion with your particle group that had the other dilepton dataset - during this time, discuss results from your group, then answer as many  follow-up “particle specific” questions as you have time for.

1:30 - 2:00

Milestone 2 Presentation Work

2:00 - 2:30

Work on student hat presentation in decay channel groups - parameters listed in Milestone 2 part 8 and on Decay Channel Questions

2:45 - 3:00

Daily Feedback Survey 

3:00 - 4:00

Chris Polly g-2 talk (in 327) 

Slides (PPT)

• Slides from Adam Lyon (older version  lives in the 2018 camper resources folder here)

• Bonus Material:
  • Here are some additional slides from Chris Polly, the former Muon g-2 project manager, and others from his colleagues:
    • Chris’s initial proposal to bring g-2 to Fermilab;
    • A very technical talk on how to make this thing happen;
    • A talk by FNAL scientist Steve Werkema summarizing the experiments on the muon campus;
    • FermiLab’s summary of the updated results released last August, 2023
  • Adam Lyon provided a link to a simple cloud chamber design on his Github.
  • A 7 minute youtube summary of the Muon g-2 experiment, with 2023 results included

4:00 - 5:00

• g-2 tour - We will drive to the Muon Campus

 After 5:00

optional - Trip into the city??

• Jazzin’ at the Shedd Aquarium (open until 10PM)
• Adler Planetarium (open until 10PM) - if you are a member of your local science museum, the  Adler is free for you to visit
• Kane County Cougars (tickets)

 8:30 - 9:10

Arrive at 327, final polish of Milestone 2 Presentations

9:15 - 10:00

Student Hat Presentations. Upload a copy of your presentation here

10:00 - 11:00

Teacher Hat Time! (Milestone 3)

• Explore Portfolio Activities
• Other Coding Activities

11:00 - 1:00

Lunch / Processing Time at Wilson Hall Atrium

• Park at Lederman & take a stroll to Wilson Hall for lunch to avoid crazy parking  (recommend getting food from cafeteria between 11:00-12:00 to avoid Users Mtg lunch break)
• Visit the bison
• Think about how you’ll use this experience in your classrooms.

1:00 - 1:30

Venture out to Bubble Chamber, (below left) at the SiDet building (below right) to take a group photo at 1:10

1:30 - 3:30

Start planning Milestone 4

• Work in affinity groups

3:30 - 4:30

Teacher Hat: Methods

Groupworthy Task Resource: Strategies for Supporting Equitable Group Work, Dr. Marta Stoeckel & Kelly O’Shea, May 2024 Physics Teacher

Modern Classroom

Slide Deck of whole presentation - Teacher Hat Modern Classroom

Continue planning Milestone 4

4:30

All-hands meeting; daily feedback survey

After 5:00

Optional:

• Trip to American Science and Surplus; open M-F until 7, (map)
• Trip into the city for Art Institute of Chicago (open until 8 pm)
• Kane County Cougars (tickets)

7:00 - 8:00

If you are departing today, check out of the hotel, and bring your luggage with you to the lab if you are heading to the lab before we depart from the lab - otherwise check your bags at the front desk of the hotel for a departure later in the evening.

8:30 - 9:00

All Hands meeting

• Housekeeping stuff (tolls, receipts etc)

 9:00 - 10:15

 Milestone 4

• Work in affinity groups
• Complete Implementation Plan form
• Upload your  resources you’d like to share here

10:30 - 11:30

ICB Tour - meet outside building 327 at 10:20 with closed toe shoes; we will walk approx. 100 meters to the ICB building right across the street (and take selfies with bison!)

11:40 - 12:30

Lunch break (be sure to get to the cafeteria no later than 11:45am)

12:40 - 1:10

Present implementation plans in small group (remember our DataCamp Norms)

Small Groups → Elevator speech Student Hat - explain in 30 seconds what you are doing at Fermilab this week. Your target audience is: (pick 2)

1  - someone in your school (not from your dept), 

2 - a scientist working on the CMS experiment

3 - your niece, nephew, or someone you know who has not yet studied physics

4 - your students

Repeat for Teacher Hat - explain in 30 seconds what you’d like to bring back to your classroom: (pick 2)

1  - someone in your department 

2 - your department chair or supervisor

3 - your principal

4 - a friend or family member

1:15 - 2:15

Share Out of Implementation Plans

     Teachers take turns sharing out their plans in groups

     Then teachers share their elevator speeches in pairs following the Inner Circle/Outer Circle protocol

2:15 - 2:45

All hands meeting 

• Additional Quarknet opportunities - Watch Friday Flyer!!
• How to get more involved at your center

2:45 - 3:00

Complete Final Feedback Form 

AND

The Fermilab- specific form 

3:00 

Head back to the hotel or airport or home!!