QuarkNet Coding Fellows
Peter Apps, appspeterc@gmail.com
Carol Burns, burnscarol2020@gmail.com
Kayla Lane, kayla.mitchell1727@gmail.com
Emily Rosen, erosen@saintursula.org
Tracie Schroeder, bravesearth@gmail.com
Adam LaMee adamlamee@gmail.com, Lead for Coding Fellows, American Physical Society
Teacher Leaders
Shelly Derice, Michelle.Bullard@ocps.net
Celestina Pangan, cattleya1218@gmail.com
Monday, June 29
Session 1
(15 min) Welcome
- Introductions
- Overview of the week
- Administrative reminders (save receipts!)
(30 min) Norms discussion and activity
- Hopes and Fears survey
- Anonymous responses
- In breakout rooms:
- Longer intro - name, location, subjects/grade levels
- STEP-UP poster from APS STEP-UP (Spanish Version)
- Fermilab norms poster
- Which poster items resonate with you? Why?
- Which poster would you hang in your classroom? Why?
- Return to large group and each breakout room shares an item from one of the posters that stood out to your group
(15 min) Getting Started
- Pair Programming - what is it and why are Coding Fellows such fans?
- Colab tips and tricks
- AI settings
- Dark mode
- Saving your work
- General Tips
- take breaks as needed
- swap driver/navigator periodically
- ask us for help if you get stuck
Break (5 min)
(10 min) Paired Programming
- Demo of paired programming
(1 hr) Work in breakout rooms, using paired programming, on one or more of the following notebooks
(20 min) large group share-out
- Each breakout room shares a notebook you worked on
- What questions are coming up?
- Any frustrations we can discuss?
- Anything your breakout room was especially excited about?
Break (5 min)
(25 min) AI in Colab: chose your own adventure
Work in breakout rooms for a bit and return to large group to discuss pros and cons of utilizing AI when learning to code
(50 min) Probability notebooks in breakout rooms
(5 min) morning wrap-up
- A web search can be the best programming help
- We are all learning together and there is almost always more than one right solution
- Overview of afternoon session - please return with a ruler(or measurement tool on your phone) and 3 circles (lids, cups, water bottles, jars, other items that have a circular base)
Session 2
(40 min) Dr. Andrew Heckler shares STEM Fluency resource
30 min talk followed by 10 min of Q&A
Break (5 min)
(60 min) Breakout rooms for another coding notebook
Each participant needs a ruler and 3 circles
(5 min) “How I do it” with Shelly Derice
Teaching Python while teaching Forces
(10 min) Afternoon wrap-up
- 1 sentence highlight from each breakout room
- Daily feedback survey
- Other questions?
Tuesday, June 30
Session 1
(5 min) Welcome & Answers from feedback
(25 min) Share out Probability Notebooks
(25 min) Crash Course in The Standard Model
- DOE Explains the standard model
- Slides on Standard Model and CMS detector
- More slides on standard model and detectors
- Standard Model Concept Map
- Strange Charm: A Song about Quarks
- 3D Printed Quark Workbench
(45 min) breakout rooms begin Muon Mass notebooks
Visual of 3D pythagorean theorem
Break (10 min)
(30 min) return to breakout rooms to finish Muon Mass notebook
If your group is done with the Muon Mass notebook, you can begin the Big CMS dataset analysis
(30 min) each group shares their muon mass notebook
Break (5 min)
(1hr) start/continue working on Big CMS dataset analysis
(30 min) each group shares -
- What plot did you make? Why?
- Does your plot reflect the physical features of the detector or properties of the particles detected?
(5 min) morning wrap-up
Session 2
(40 min) Dr. Chris Polly, Fermilab Researcher
30 min talk followed by 10 min of Q&A
- Winner of 2026 Breakthrough Physics Award for his work on the Muon g-2 experiment
- Fermilab video that gives an overview of Muon g-2 experiment and the Breakthrough Award
- Video shared by Chris
Break (5 min)
(5 min ) “How I do it” Peter Apps - oscillating spring
(25 min) Alternatives to Google Colab lead by Peter Apps
.ipymb allows you to keep formatting, when you download from colab
- marimo.io
- Jupyter Everywhere
- Jupyter Lite
- Jupyter Notebooks in VS Code (Local install)
- Host your own Jupyter / JupyterHub
- Binder
(35 min) Breakout rooms - group choice
- Finish muon mass notebook
- Finish other notebooks from Monday and Tuesday
- Try some of the alternatives to Google Colab suggested by Peter
- Projectile with air resistance
- Explore notebooks listed on github site arranged by topic
- The 100,000 brightest stars in the Milky Way
(10 min) Afternoon wrap-up
- 1 sentence highlight from each breakout room
- Daily feedback survey
- Other questions?
- Homework: download Phyphox on your cell phone
Wednesday, July 1
Session 1
(5 min) Welcome
Today begins ‘Teacher hat’ phase of the week
Pull in Phyphox data (or sheets) from Google Drive
Pull in Phyphox data from Local Machine
(20 min) “How I do it” Emily Rosen, How to use Phyphox to collect data
Example: Elevator lab or Projectile Motion Data
Phyphox 10th anniversary events
puck.js as an alternative to using the phone
(20 min) “How I do it” Tracie Schroeder, Using probeware to collect data to import into
(10 min) Explanation of Implementation plan
Break (5 min)
(5 min) return to large group and select breakout room option
- Collect and import data using probeware
- Collect and import data using Phyphox
- Find data online import that into a notebook
Possible sources for data:
- Trends.google.com
- Data.gov
- Google data search
- NASA Earth Data
- CERN Open Data
- Awesome Public Datasets (Github)
- Find Open Datasets and Machine Learning Projects | Kaggle
(2.5 hrs) begin working on your project
- Take breaks as needed!
- Ask for help from Coding Fellows and other teachers in your breakout room
- Googling, copying from notebooks created by other teachers who participated in Coding camp, use QuarkNet notebooks as inspiration, and using your AI platform of choice are all valid ways to complete your project
(25 min) large group share out/ morning wrap-up
- Challenges that we can discuss as a group?
- Successes?
- Other questions/thoughts
Session 2
(40 min) Dr. Phil Ilten, University of Cincinnati
More details on Dr. Ilten’s work can be found here
Talk Title: 0.1 + 0.2 != 0.3
Link to notebook used during talk
Link to tutorial github shared by Dr. Ilten
30 min talk followed by 10 min of Q&A
Break (5 min)
(10 min) Examples from teachers just like you!
- Sea Level Rise
- Bigfoot Sightings
- Learn plate tectonics by inquiry? Try this notebook.
- Falcon 9 Rocket
(45 min) continue working on implementation plan
(20 min) Afternoon wrap-up
- Items 1 & 3 on the 2026 workshop must-do items page
- Anne Zakas needs your SSN, call her at 574-631-2789 and leave a message.
- Email Ann Zakas, zakas.1@nd.edu, your receipt(s) for tech reimbursement (up to $250)
- Email Ann, zakas.1@nd.edu, your home address (where you would like your check mailed to)
- Daily feedback survey
Thursday, July 2
Session 1
(5 min) Welcome
(5 min) “How I do it” Tracie Schroeder, Position of the Sun
Time to work on implementation project
- Breakout room for guided session on importing data from probeware
- Other rooms?
Session 2
(40 min) Agnes Chavez. STEMarts Lab
30 min talk followed by 10 min Q&A
https://www.instagram.com/stemartslab
Break (5 min)
(1 hr) time to work on implementation plan
(10 min) afternoon wrap-up
Friday, July 3
Session 1
(10 min) Welcome
- group photoproj
Peter’s Colab alternatives continued
Adam LaMee visits at noon
- I work at the American Physical Society to lead PhysTEC, StepUP Physics, and Faculty Teaching Institute
- I’m also part of an upcoming NASA experiment called Lunar-VISE which will launch a lander and rover to the Moon around 2028.
- See the Why Physics page on my website for resources to help you advocate for default enrollment into key math and science courses.
- You can reach me at lamee@aps.org if there’s anything I can do to support you, your school, or your students.
(3 hrs 45min) Continue working on implementation plan
- A good place to include your implementation plan is in your coding notebook.
- Be prepared to have others look at your implementation plan and coding activity at the beginning of Session 2.
- Add a link to your notebooks in this spreadsheet
- If you finish your implementation plan, there will be a breakout room to discuss the CMS data, if you would like to review that notebook
Session 2
(40 min) Denis Torres DUNE Masterclass info (PhD student SD Mines)
30 min talk followed by 10 min Q&A
Break (5 min)
(30 min) Share plans for implementation in groups of 4
- Assign a timekeeper since this timeline is tight
- 5 minutes of each camper “Driving” one notebook; 5 minutes of feedback/questions
- Participate as a student might. The author can make their own notes with comments/feedback.
- Briefly decide upon ONE activity (of the four) that you want to “showcase” later.
(30 min) Coding Activity Showcase
- (3 min Showcasers will screen share, briefly summarize their lesson, and mention some of the feedback received during the small group session
- Please make sure your implementation plan is linked here
(15 min) week wrap-up
- Did you email Ann Zakas?
- Have you completed a QuarkNet survey this year?
- Can we share your email address with Coding Camp teachers?
- Plan ahead - Programs you should apply for: CERN HST (apps open Nov 1 ), Einstein Plus (apps open early December), international physics and astronomy program (LIGO)
- Daily feedback survey
Group Picture
After Camp Resources
Learning to code
- CODE.org has TONS of great stuff for teachers and students
- W3Schools.org has great, free tutorials on Python, HTML, Java and more
- Python for Everybody (pdf) book
- Python Programming: An Introduction to Computer Science by John M. Zelle
- EDX.org online courses
- Chris Orban’s Let’s Code physics simulation activities and HS coding page on Compadre
- PICUP collaboration of activities submitted by other teachers
Data Science
- PBS documentary Coded Bias about algorithmic biases and their societal effects
- Jake Vanderplas’ Data Science Handbook
- Adam’s CODINGinK12.org science coding activities
- Function to run on a Pandas DataFrame
- Some Numpy functions
- Some Pyplot functions
- Pandas Cheat Sheet
- Matplotlib cheat sheets
- Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez
Physics
- Disordered Cosmos: Dark Matter, Spacetime, & Dreams Deferred by Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
- Reading recommendations page
- Quantum Diaries blog
- PhyPhox mobile app to collect, plot, and export raw data from Apple and Android mobile devices. And it’s free.
- Particle Physics Data Group (PDG): for example, the page on the J/ψ.
- CERN OpenData project
- Teaching Relativity in Week 1 by E. R. Huggins
Teaching
- Ambitious Science Teaching
- Science in the City
- Rebuilding Students’ Learning Power
- State of AI and CS education in each state in the US