Birmingham Schools contacts & feedback Jan 26 th – May 28 th 2009 Lynne Long, University of Birmingham, UK

About what I do……….. I organise activities and events for students & teachers - on the University campus - and out in schools, both locally and nationally As well as working with the IOP in the UK to develop a supportive teacher network to share and disseminate interesting ideas & good practise

Particle Physics is currently of great interest to teachers and students in the UK…. Because it has had coverage in the media – first beam in September 2008 etc And because particle physics concepts now form part of the core curriculum at A Level Y9 poster competition 2007

I give talks out in around 50 different schools per year – reaching students 11-18yrs And particle physics is a very popular topic to include……

Pupils of all ages in secondary schools are captured by the statistics of the LHC……… 27 km circumference – A BIG EXPERIMENT! Each proton goes around the 27km ring over 11,000 times a second. Energy of proton beam in LHC > 0.3 GJ (family car travelling at 1000 mph) Energy stored in magnets > 1 GJ Super-conducting magnets cooled to ~ 1.9 K (colder than Outer Space).

And the topic can be used to talk about curriculum physics concepts and bring them to life …… Electric& magnetic field theory - Electromagnets & superconductors - Forces on charged particles, Flemming’s LHR Mass-energy equivalence Even special relativity etc

I have established good contacts with schools and teachers through These talks and workshops Through the teacher network in the West Midlands area – having an database of over 200 teachers who have signed up to receive regular newsletters etc and who regularly attend events and conferences etc

- Initial meeting in Birmingham – January 26 th 2009 An invitation was sent to local schools in the network With the aim of establishing a group of interested teachers to work with us on this project 16 teachers expressed interest and 13 of them were able to come along to the meeting Which we held 4-6pm after school, providing a buffet tea.

During the meeting… The teachers were introduced to the project aims and some initial tools/activities that they and their students could investigate We subsequently provided links to these introductory powerpoint presentations and tools on a local web page Informal discussions were initiated to provide early feedback/ideas on where to focus our efforts, constraints …

Main comments made included.. Any activities for students need to be short and focused – minutes if it is "hands - on" or a possible homework activity, less if it is an interesting example that could be used to illustrate a core concept in class etc. Teacher ratings/comments on activities would be useful Activities would be better if not too repetitive and graded so the students could see they were making progress / learning something useful for their school studies as well as doing something a bit different/fun.

Anything on the portal for use in school would be more useful if it had a target age group specified, a time taken and where it might link into or enhance school curriculum topics. The portal seems like a good idea in principle but has to be recognisably useful & easy to access (no passwords etc) / easy to navigate. Identifying events in detectors is a fun "add-on" but not really part of school syllabi - some of recent masterclass attendees had felt the computer exercises were quite hard to get into/understand.

Any exercise must start simple to build confidence and be very directed and easy to tell if on right track. (+ work sheets etc) Activities should be enjoyable and students should a get feeling and evidence of achievement for reaching a certain stage (eg could issue certificates) Useful if Virtual Learning environment where pupils can access material used in lessons from home.

Make the work sheets easier to edit/customise as possible by using.doc files rather than pdf Make sure the LHC is used to interest a wide range of engineering topics as well including eg achieving the low temperature etc Task sheets should spell out what needs to be done and on which web site etc. Also they should indicate the level of difficulty so that students of high or low ability could find suitable routes through the material.

The main concerns cited.….. There are so many websites/resources and no time to look at them, find the good ones etc Teachers want more than just another list of links, they want something where they can get a handle on if its useful, and who its for. The only real Particle Physics ideas in the curriculum don't appear until AS or A2.

So it would be great if we could find Some interesting activities, captivating facts or example problems etc involving something from the LHC or ATLAS, that teachers could easily use with students of all ages when teaching basic physics concepts

Minerva Software Trial After the initial meeting, the teacher group were asked to trial a version of the Minerva software – themselves & possibly also with their students Mark Stockton set up links and instructions from the twiki page and we ed some log on details etc to the group and asked for feedback An evaluation form was devised later to facilitate this process

Main initial points raised Slow download of software in some cases Instructions not always clear or in one place easy to access – took ages to look through all the various bits of info! Could they be in video format? Students may struggle to use this at home without help Displays are unfamiliar and can be confusing. The rolled out display needs further explanation

And…… More guidance needed on how to recognise the particle tracks The “pick” option in the bottom right hand corner isn’t very understandable Usefulness in school and outcomes not clear – identifying particle tracks/detectors are not really part of school curricula The powerpoint implies the student version will have tick boxes so that will make it easier

Some comments from use of this package PP Masterclass April 2008 The computer activity was excellent – the students found it really enjoyable, challenging and interesting. It could have done with better instructions though – Teacher  The computing activity was good to have an idea of how the actual software used at CERN. And of how difficult it is to identify what is going on at the LHC – A Level Student

Initial conclusions The software is a good package – teachers and students like “hands-on”, interactive activities, even if it’s not directly syllabus related Easy downloads and VERY CLEAR & EASY TO FIND instructions are vital or teachers & students will lose interest The displays/ideas are unfamiliar to most students and teachers so clear examples, answers to initial display questions, tick box interaction and quick feedback

Initial modifications Mark added some PP slides to the twiki site to try to clarify the exercises – and in the April 2009 masterclass, a longer talk, with more explanations and examples, was presented to the student group before the exercises were attempted. Some tutorial events with quick feedback were introduced at the very start of the activity to give students confidence to continue with the exercise – and the exercise answers could be ticked off in boxes on screen and marked immediately on completion The right hand side display window was simplified

Feedback from 2009 masterclass Computing activity rated /5 – teachers /5 – students….higher than 2008 Out of 97 feedback form returns, 28 students voted the computing activity the best bit of the day (cf CERN video link – 30 votes) 18 student votes for more “hands-on activities”

Some comments after the event I'd like to thank you and others at Birmingham University for the fantastic event on Wednesday 22nd April. It very enjoyable and insightful and it has greatly boosted my interest in Physics (which was already quite high)! – student Verbal feedback from students was very positive indeed and all Walton staff who attended felt it was positively inspirational - Teacher

Final thoughts There is a demand and an appreciation for links with “real” particle physics research and researchers in the school sector It is difficult to provide particle physics “experiments” for school students – we are improving the computer simulations but have a way to go Teaching physics through “Space”concepts is already being developed through the Space Academy project at the Space Centre in Leicester, UK – Learning with is an opportunity to develop something similar with particle physics

Next steps in Birmingham On July 7 th 2009 we will run our annual Ideas day for Teachers & Technicians – an average of around 30 participants usually attend this event One of our workshops this year will be “Hands on Particle Physics Software” where we hope to introduce the project ideas to more schools/teachers and get more feedback/ideas And we will trial the software with students again at a small master class event in December 2009.