Idaho State University
Contact Information
Steven Shropshire
shropshi@physics.isu.edu
In 2008, ISU QuarkNet veterans Bettie Keetch, Janette Briggs, Tony Favero, Steve Ordonez, Richard Fillerup, Ted Muller, and Linda Walter were joined by Bruce Cornell and Mark Anderson of Boise, Idaho, and Robert Frankowiak of Logan, Utah for the ISU QuakNet workshop. Keith Quigley, Andrew Cochrane, Paul Fechtmeister, Sandy Shutey, Mike Sullivan, and Ron Call remain active but could not attend for one reason or another.
During the workshop, the ten teachers completed construction and testing of our second cosmic ray detector and participated in a short workshop on using it and the older detector system. During the workshop the teachers learned to optimize detector bias voltages and signal thresholds, collected sample data for two different detector configurations, and uploaded and analyzed data. A different ISU faculty member gave a lecture each day on nuclear and particle physics and related research at ISU and at Jefferson National Laboratory. Linda Walter and two of her students also gave a delightful presentation on their experiences at CERN Open Day this spring. During the fall of 2007 and spring of 2008, our first cosmic ray detector was shared among eight teachers. Each was able to use the detector in their classrooms for three weeks to introduce their students to particle physics. As part of the 2008 Institute, six of these teachers shared their experiences using the system with their students. A consensus formed several months before the 2008 institute that they needed more instruction and experience in using the system. Because of this, the bulk of the 2008 institute was devoted to the setup and use of both of the ISU detectors, the analysis software, and the procedure for posting experiment summaries online. The teachers formed groups of two and conducted coincidence experiments similar to what their students could be expected to perform. Each group gave a presentation of their experiment and posted a summary of it online. In anticipation of the acquisition by ISU Physics of several hundred neutron detectors from the Pacific Northwest Laboratories, the teachers participated in three laboratory experiments using similar neutron detectors. In the first experiment they optimized detector bias voltages and signal thresholds, in the second they optimized the geometry of materials to moderate fast neutrons to maximize count rates, and in the third they set up and tested a coincidence experiment looking for simultaneous cosmic ray detection in a plastic scintilator and a neutron detector. It is the intention of ISU Physics to provide each teacher with a neutron detector and associated electronics for continual use in their classrooms, possibly as soon as the 2009-2010 school year. All ten teachers who participated will share use of the two cosmic ray detectors in the fall of 2008 and in the spring of 2009. Each teacher will have one of the detectors in their classroom for six weeks this school year.
