Minnesota 2023 QuarkNet Annual Report

Minnesota Mentor: Greg Pawloski

Minnesota Lead Teachers: Jon Anderson & Karin Foss

This center held NOvA Masterclass on March 11, 2023. Greg Pawloski worked with Minnesota teacher and Neutrino Fellow Mike Plucinski and QuarkNet staff to develop this masterclass exercise. This day provided an opportunity for high school students to experience the measurement and for Greg, Mike, and QuarkNet staff to learn from this experience in order to improve this new masterclass measurement for future use at teacher workshops and future masterclasses.
For a full agenda on this masterclass day, click on the link below:

2023 NOvA Masterclass agenda: https://quarknet.org/content/2023-nova-masterclass-u-mn

A summer workshop was held for teachers on August 9-10, 2023. Four teachers new to QuarkNet joined this year's workshop. The first day focused on some "classics" from QuarkNet's Data Activities Portfolio (DAP), including Shuffling the Particle Deck and Making Tracks, and Rolling with Rutherford. Teachers heard a talk from Devin Mahon on SUSY, toured the CubeSat Lab on campus, and learned about the Zooniverse and citizen science from Minnesota Prof. Lucy Fortson. Day two featured a closer look into uncertainty in W boson mass measurements which lead into a discussion about uncertainty in physics more generally. Teachers also heard at talk from Kirk Bays on the Standard Model, and were able to attend a poster session in which the physics department's 2023 REU (Research Expereince for Undergraduate) students presented their summer work, learning, and accomplishments. 

For a full agenda of the 2023 teacher workshop, click on the link below:

2023 Teacher workshop agenda: https://quarknet.org/content/minnesota-summer-2023-workshop