Data Workshops will help prepare teachers to use activites that emply data fom several particle physics experiments (as well as other sources). The workshops are designed to allow the teachers time to select and perform activities so that they can see what their students see. The teachers will also have time to carefully plan how they might use the activities with their students.
Objectives
Participating teachers will:
- Apply classical physics principles to reduce or explain the observations in data investigations.
- Identify and describe ways that data are organized for determining any patterns that may exist in the data.
- Create, organize and interpret data plots; make claims based on evidence and provide explanations; identify data limitations.
- Develop a plan for taking students from their current level of understanding data use to subsequent levels using activities and/or ideas from the workshop.
Sample 2-day Agenda
This is a draft, boilerplate agenda. We will provide more detail later this spring. Each workshop can be adapted to the needs of the hosting center. We haven't included useful things like lunch and coffee breaks in this draft. Groups might also consider augmenting this agenda with an additional talk or a videoconference with a research site (e.g., CERN or Fermilab).
First Day
Explore several Level One and Level Two activites. Set up and run the activity, collect and analyze data, draw and interpret plots. Reflect and discuss the activity's possible use.
- Introduction to workshop
- Physicist presentation on collection and analysis of data in research
- 2-4 Level One activities
- Basic Level 2 activity
- Reflection/discussion
Second Day
Explore Level Three activities or finish activities from the first day.
- Advanced Level 2 Activity
- Basic Level 3 Activity
- Discuss and plan classroom implementation of sampled activities
Data Workshops will have a unifying thread. A viable thread can be based on data from a particular experiment ; it can also come from a particular educational purpose to data from a variety of sources. Examples include a CMS or a Cosmic Ray Data Workshop as well as a Data Workshop intended to build the use of inquiry and statisitcs.