Dan Claes Susan Pfiffner Brian Jones Education and Outreach Opportunities at Henderson DUSEL Colorado State University Friday, November 18, 2005 Dan Claes Susan Pfiffner Brian Jones

CROP Summer Workshops http://crop/unl.edu/ The detectors and supporting electronics are refurbished and distributed through the 4-week Summer Workshops we run at UNL attended each year by 5-6 high school teams (of 1-2 teachers, bringing 1-4 students). http://crop/unl.edu/

The Chicago Air Shower Array located in the Utah Desert: 1089 stations, 15m spacing covering 0.23 square km recycling retired detectors from the Chicago Air Shower Array 2 ft x 2 ft x ½ inch Though they’ve seen a decade of surface on the Utah desert floor, they do clean up nicely! Read out by 10 stage EMI 9256 photomultiplier tube PMMA (polymethyl methacrylate) doped with a scintillating fluor

CROP article in Lincoln Journal Star, 7 August 2003 As this local newspaper article summarizes, CROP is mobilizing high school teams across the state of Nebraska to participate in a state-wide study of correlated high energy air showers. Our plan is to place student-built and operated particle detectors on the roofs of all 314 high schools across the state.

Aspen Center for Physics Education & Outreach Workshop July 6-8, 2004 SALTA schools take over the library, setting up cosmic ray telescopes, for training in the new DAQcard that will be used in all their data-taking. The physics instructors from three of these same schools are here with you this week, training in the use of the new DAQ card that should facilitate all their data-taking.

SALTA: Snowmass Area Large Time-Coincidence Array Empire Aspen High School, Aspen, CO Basalt High School, Basalt, CO Roaring Fork Valley High School, Carbondale, CO Lake County High School, Leadville, CO The highest-elevation school in U.S. -- 10,152 feet above sea level Exactly 3 years ago…in July 2001 CROP and WALTA jointly sponsored a Rocky Mountain cousin involving 4 schools in the Roaring Fork Valley …recently joined by Clear Creek High school, a very interested school in not-quite-so-nearby Empire, Colorado. Clear Creek High School, Empire, CO

Detectors were configured into muon telescopes telescoped pair with coincidence requirement against noise sandwiching a ¼ inch lead sheet 2 modules taken down into the mine Detectors moved at 2-3 week intervals A portable stand held each muon telescope.

since dust posed a problem for a PC we housed a low-power serial digital data logger alongside the DAQcard Acumen Instruments Databridge development kit

Desktop Base Station An ~identical pair of modules ran in a fixed location (surface office) to establish our baseline

SALTA’s Henderson Project was launched September 29, 2004

Clear Creek High School students set up the satellite modules at the 1st underground location

Basalt High School students move the detectors to their 2nd location

Some preliminary observations Data collected between Sept 29 – Dec 8, 2004 monitored 4 locations between depths of 2800-3900 ft Some preliminary observations Rates at Henderson surface base station (10,337 ft above sea level) = 2.5rates at Lincoln, NE (elevation: 1189 ft) Raw rates in muon telescopes seen to drop from 10 Hz (surface rate) → 1.5 Hz → 0.5 Hz → 0.3 Hz

SALTA high school students are now analyzing the data identifying stable data run periods bad data channels Channel 0,1 coincidences Channel 2,3 coincidences …and learning about the statistical nature of random events Students will next learn to calculate accidental coincidence rates and statistical error

The future revive the original cosmic ray grid plans for SALTA At the conclusion of Henderson measurements revive the original cosmic ray grid plans for SALTA recruit neighboring schools to expand the grid work with schools to plug into CROP-WALTA

When the DUSEL facility is built a cosmic ray grid on area schools will continuously monitor the local cosmic "weather" reporting it as close to live as we can to the lab. I hope to see monitors at the lab entrance (and/or Visitor’s Center) featuring the high school report, so again local schools can feel they are making a contribution to the experiment. At the same time, their data will be part of the CROP-WALTA network.

Vision for Visitor’s Center needs some input. NSF is really interested in potential impact of such a center. NUSEL Underground Science Conference Lead, South Dakota Oct 4-7, 2001 The Smithsonian posts design recommendations i.e., square footage of open self-guided exhibition space based on number of visitors/hour during the highest attendance months Need to estimate annual attendance Monthly attendance (especially during local high tourist season) Then, on a daily basis, the expected peak attendance month Should generate an average over 8? 9? hours of open operation N visitors/hour.

Should be able to estimate attendance figures by surveying local: museums visitors' centers educational facilities observatories Imax theaters restored historic homes art galleries Can we get figures on how many visitors Winter Park draws ???/year ???/month during ski season Arapaho National Forest? St. Mary's Glacier? We need estimated annual attendance ... as well as monthly attendance figures National Center for Atmospheric Reasearch (NCAR) in Boulder, CO? Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden, CO? Can stress the population of the greater Denver metropolitan area also: number of school districts, schools, school-age children

flyer distributed via email to all Fort Collins area science teachers in the “Little Shop of Physics” data base as well as Colorado State University introductory biology instructors Science Teaching Methods instructors

Teacher Ideas from CU Bio Workshop Thursday, October 20 Identified an important Long-term need A recertification effort to help (particularly remote rural) teachers get “highly certified”. Offer online/remote courses. Classroom/lab setup with program of packaged presentations or activities Teachers bring entire classes Menu of 3 or 4 different topics Must fit standards. Run a traveling program / mobile lab Undergrad presenters? Do some sort of internship? Using grad students: like the GK-12 program.

with credit hours available through university members Teacher Ideas from CU Bio Workshop Thursday, October 20 Summer/weekend program for teachers. with credit hours available through university members REU programs Bringing in student groups/underrepresented through some sort of residential program? Visitor facility. Something to do on your day off from skiing. Ask teachers to develop, share lessons. repository/clearing house

Susan Pfiffner has been running a successful REU program BioGeoChemical Educational Experience Susan Pfiffner has been running a successful REU program where student teams collect samples down the ultradeep gold mines of the South African Witwatersrand

Search for life: undergraduates extract DNA from rock samples High tech: High schoolers build test equipment Young minds: Grade school children (in hard hats!) ask engineer where underground water comes from!

Through his Little Shop of Physics program Brian annually sets up a meeting with the Native American Student Services campus organization. He will inquire about arranging A HUSEP presentation to a group. Also scheduled is a meeting with El Centro (Hispanic Student Services Center) about a program in October. Brian will check if there is an appropriate Hispanic educational or community conference that would welcome presentations on HUSEP/DUSEL.

Outreach to Scientists Which we see as beginning as a formal presentation at each the regular scientific workshop describing the planned late afternoon activities inviting visitors to come see what they are all about (and help out?!) - a recruitment pitch each time to get everyone to support, contribute to and participate in outreach efforts. to evolve into formal presentations/demos on how scientists should DO outreach: proven teaching practices and methods demos of classroom technology how-to primers on controversial topics (evolution) Also beyond the workshops themselves provide exposure to DUSEL efforts across disciplines to ALL scientists (weekly newsletter, weekly generally audience colloquia)

See you at this evening’s reception! This afternoon’s E&O session 4:30pm Engineering E203 See you at this evening’s reception!