Classroom Activities
From QNFellows
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Build a QuarkNet Cosmic Ray Cloud Chamber - PDF [1]
Submitters: Bob Peterson and Anne Mary Teichert, Fermilab, Jeremy Paschke, York High School
The QuarkNet Cosmic Ray e-Lab supports hands-on research on cosmic rays. The Cosmic Ray e-Lab portal presents analysis tools, and the QuarkNet Cosmic Ray Muon Detector (CRMD) allows students to take actual measurements of cosmic rays. The constant flux of protons and muons particles from deep space prompts the asking of interesting research questions. While the quantification of data is critical to student research, frequently students lack tangible evidence of what they are measuring. "Can we see them?," students ask. Sometimes seeing is believing.
Cosmic Rays in the Classroom
Submitter: Martin Shaffer, Seaman High School, Topeka, KS
Being in a physics classroom for over a decade, I have come to realize that what students really need is a real world science experience, not just another lecture. Belonging to the Quarknet group at Kansas State University gave me the opportunity to borrow a cosmic ray detector for use in my classroom. At first, I knew very little about what was going on and spent a year just stumbling around with it, but learning what questions to ask. At the beginning of my second year with it, I was introduced to the cosmic ray e-lab. This simplified the data collection, analysis, and research for both me and my students. I started off the year by having my honors physics students assemble the detector on the first day of class. We set up five research teams of about 4 in each team and assigned each a day for uploads, Monday through Friday. The teams came in before school for ten minutes or so to upload data run performance studies or flux studies depending on what we needed at the time. From time to time, we looked at these studies in class and discussed what our data may mean and developed a plan for what to do next with the detector based on what we were seeing in our data. This led to experiments including calibrating our detector, efficiency studies between each of our 4 collectors as well as other cosmic ray detectors in our Quarknet group, shielding, muon flux rates, speed of muons, and lifespan of muon experiments. Students designed experiments, collected data, and made posters on the e-lab, practically publishing the results of their experiments. One group built a cloud chamber in an attempt to see the particles we where detecting. I personally was learning about all this while the students where attempting to answer the questions I was posing to them. Looking back near the end of my first year with the e-lab, I thought I would lose content by spending the extra time working with this, but I believe I’ve covered more physics content this last year than I’ve covered any other year I have taught physics. We started looking at relativity in the first month of kinematics, was talking in terms of standard atomic model looking at muons, pions, and other neutrinos and that led to quarks and other particles. We had an early morning LHC startup party, but had problems with the live internet feed. I used the cosmic ray detector in almost everything we studied from motion, vectors, forces, charge, gravity, energy, waves, and various quantum mechanics topics. I have three of my students declare majors in physics at KSU, in the previous 13 years of teaching; I’ve had only one student pursue that degree. All in all, I have had the most productive, creative, and enjoyable year in honors physic, thanks to the cosmic ray e-lab.
