Friday Flyer - October 9, 2015
Spotlight on the Kansas State University QuarkNet Center: In its twelfth year, the KSU center remains strong, serving primarily teachers from small, rural schools throughout Kansas. In March, KSU participated in a particle physics masterclass with 7 teachers and 16 students in attendance, assisted by KSU's HEP and Cosmology graduate students. In the summer, KSU QuarkNet teachers were involved in a wide range of experiences, from local to international. Curt Parry and James Neff participated in the 2015 Data Camp at Fermilab, and Penny Blue went to Inspiring Science Education in Greece. The KSU teachers met during the week of July 6, starting with a workshop on Cosmology, Dark Matter and Neutrino Physics at KSU; then finishing off the week traveling to South Dakota to tour the labs nearly a mile underground at Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF). While traveling, the Kansas teachers were also able to squeeze in visits to some of South Dakota's tourist attractions, including Mount Rushmore and the Badlands!
News from QuarkNet Central: New Center Contacts! At a meeting of QuarkNet staff and leaders at Notre Dame this past weekend, we reviewed center contacts, assigning a staff member or leadership fellow to each center as our main point of contact. Staff and fellows will be in touch with mentors and teacher leaders to renew connections and start planning for future work. List of Assignments
Physics Experiment Roundup: You probably have heard the exciting news this week that the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Takaaki Kajita (from Japan) and Arthur McDonald (from Canada) for their contributions to experiments that demonstrate the oscillation of neutrinos from one type to another. In the U.S., experiments such as MINOS and NOvA continue to study neutrino oscillation; NOvA released its first results earlier this year.
Resources: Thanks to event display guru Tom McCauley, it is now possible to visualize CMS collision events in stereoscopic 3D using a phone and a simple, inexpensive (~$10) Google Cardboard viewer. The content comes from iSpy-webGL, a browser-based event display developed in part by QuarkNet support for CMS. It works on a phone, tablet and desktop via a browser. Once it's loaded on your phone (preferably using Chrome), follow the instructions, and enjoy!
Just for Fun: On the topic of neutrinos again . . . check out Sheldon Cooper's "Gino the Neutrino"!
QuarkNet Staff Teachers:
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Bob Peterson: rspete@fnal.gov
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu