Oklahoma QuarkNet: Annual Report 2025

The University of Oklahoma (OU) and Oklahoma State University (OSU) QuarkNet groups again joined forces for a lively summer QuarkNet Teacher Workshop.  This year’s workshop was hosted at OU from July 8-10.

There was excess demand for the available travel support.  Fortunately, the OU Physics & Astronomy department was able to contribute additional funds to cover all interested participants.  In total, we had 16 participants attend the three-day workshop.  We had a nice balance of newcomers and returning veterans, with eight of the attendees having previously participated in QuarkNet and eight being new to the program.  Our recruiting effort targeted schools with a high proportion of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch.  Among the eight new participants, seven represented schools where at least 50% of the student body received free or reduced-price lunch.

We were joined by Ken Cecire and Marybeth Senser, who put together a fantastic agenda.  The first day began with a general overview of HEP (Joe Haley), discussion of cosmic rays (John Stupak), and an introduction to the cosmic ray (CR) detectors (Ken Cecire).  Participants then broke into groups and successfully took data with three of the four available CR detectors (with the fourth requiring some replacement parts).  The second day of the workshop involved more operation of the CR detectors; participants measured the muon lifetime using real data from the CR detectors (and also performed a dice-based activity simulating muon decay).  Participants were also treated to a talk on Machine Learning in HEP (Connor Waits).  The final day was focused on implementation plans and discussion of the APS Step Up program (Marybeth Senser).

In addition to the summer workshop, OSU organized three ATLAS MasterClasses in 2025, hosting around 40 high-school students from various schools in Oklahoma to learn about particle physics and participate in hands-on activities.  The students analyzed real data from the ATLAS experiment at CERN and presented their findings in a video conference with Fermilab. 

Overall, we had another great year, and we are thankful to the NSF for funding this program.  Teachers and students in Oklahoma do not have much exposure to basic research, and QuarkNet has been one of our most successful tools for getting high school students engaged in, and excited about, physics.  We look forward to next year, with the summer workshop back at OSU for 2026.