Argonne National Laboratory
Contact Information
Robert Wagner
rgwcdf@anl.gov
Argonne and NIU teamed up this year to expand the QuarkNet program to northwestern Illinois. NIU hosted its first QuarkNet institute June 9-13, 2008. Five teachers from high schools in the DeKalb area attended and brought seven students with them. The teachers were Jay Smith (DeKalb High School), Mike McHale (Byron High School), Dallas Turner (Rockford Auburn High School), Christine Browne (Sterling High School), and James Browne (Amboy High School). The institute was organized by Dhiman Chakraborty (NIU Physics Professor), Pati Sievert (NIU Physics Outreach Coordinator), and Bob Wagner (Argonne). Two cosmic ray counter setups were borrowed from schools that are part of the Argonne QuarkNet Center and one new set of cosmic ray counters was constructed from the standard QuarkNet kit. In addition to initial instruction on using the cosmic ray setups, there were several talks: Introduction to Particle Physics -- Dhiman Chakraborty, Particle Physics Detectors -- Michael Fortner (NIU), Cosmic Ray Physics -- Bob Wagner, Connection to Astroparticle Physics and Cosmology -- Rich Talaga (Argonne). After assembling the new cosmic ray detector on the first day, Tuesday's activity was to plateau the counters and take the first data. Data taking continued on Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday afternoon was set aside for a trip to nearby Fermilab and a tour of the laboratory.
Many teachers in the combined Argonne/NIU center were able to attend Masterclass 2008 at Argonne earlier in the year on Thursday, March 13. We had a total of 7 teachers and 27 students at the masterclass. The day included a tour of the Advanced Photon Source, the coherent X-ray facility at Argonne. Students and teachers enjoyed the introduction to particle physics and the chance to do a little hands-on analysis of Z events from LEP. We concluded the day with a video link-up to Fermilab, Johns Hopkins University, and Mayaguez, Puerto Rico to compare notes on our Z analysis.
The plans for the coming year include working on the organization of the NIU QuarkNet group. Getting the teachers together during the year is always a challenge due to the full schedule for the high school physics classes and the differing vacation schedules in the schools. We will try to visit with both the Argonne and NIU teachers at their schools and to organize at least a one day get together to discuss the studies being done with the cosmic ray counters. The week-long summer institutes have worked well for getting most of the group together and we will again work to organize one. Anticipating that most of the teachers will be seasoned "veterans" by summer, 2009 opens up possibilities to go beyond our usual format of introductory lectures and learning the fundamentals of the counter setups.
