Friday Flyer - November 3, 2017

Spotlight on the Florida State University QuarkNet Center

Located in Tallahassee, the FSU Center is now in its 18th year. This year's main event was a teacher workshop that met from July 25–29, with 14 teachers attending. The workshop included a tour of the new MRI facility at FSU's College of Medicine, talks from faculty ranging on topics from quantum computing to astronomy, and a two-day CMS e-Lab workshop in which teachers analyzed CMS data using the new e-Lab. Also, teachers had the opportunity to share favorite classroom activities with each other and discussed classroom implementation strategies. Members plan to meet informally during the 2017-18 school year to discuss topics of mutual interest. 

News from QuarkNet Central

The LIGO 2018 International Teacher Program is now accepting applications. More information and a link to the application can be found here. Contact Amber Strunk, LIGO Hanford's Education and Outreach Coordinator, if you have any questions. 

Registration for International Masterclasses began last week. Mentors, especially, please do not forget to sign your center up for slot(s) for ATLAS Masterclass and CMS Masterclass videoconferences from Fermilab. Registration closes on November 20; after that, please contact Ken Cecire directly. Fermilab videoconferences for IMC 2018 run March 3–24 and April 6–7. 

World Wide Data Day 2017 is close at hand; Vidyo tests are next week, and the main event is November 14. Read about those tests in W2D2-17 Memo #2 and more in Memo #3. Bonus: a tweet of the IPPOG Masterclass Steering Group trying out a W2D2 measurement at CERN!

QuarkNet Nuts and Bolts

Have an unused QuarkNet cosmic ray detector lying around? Please either get it up and running uploading data to the e-Lab, or return it to QuarkNet Central so it may be put to use in another teacher's classroom; QuarkNet will even pay for shipping! Contact Mark, Ken or Shane if you need assistance getting the detector up and running or if you have any other questions. Contact Dave Hoppert to return a detector or request repairs.

Physics Experiment Roundup

International collaboration is crucial in particle physics experiments; this article describes how Fermilab has recently expanded international partnerships. CERN recently announced that the LHC has reached its 2017 targets ahead of schedule. 

Resources

Check out this periodic table that shows where our elements came from. Learn how muon detection was used to discover large open spaces in the Great Pyramid of Giza from Science News and NPR. Find out how the Force (think Star Wars) is like dark matter. And lastly, Dark Matter Day according to Newsweek and the The New Yorker.

Just for Fun

Now that Halloween is over, what do you do with all those left over pumpkins? Fermilab at Work has a trick in mind! Does a black cat really bring bad luck? Find out in this other Halloween-themed article by Fermilab at Work!