BHS/SURF 2022 Annual Report
The 2022 BHSU Quarknet Annual Report
The BHSU Quarknet Center went through some changes this last year with some familiar faces and welcomed some new faces to our group. Kara Keeter and Peggy Norris have made some transitions in their careers with Kara no longer teaching at BHSU and Peggy’s retirement from BHSU/SDSTA. These remarkable women are the reason that there is a BHSU Quarknet group that Kara created from nothing and Peggy helped nurture and grow over the last dozen years. They have be the fundamental key to bringing the world of particle physics to hundreds of teachers and thousands of students. They will both be involved as the center moves forward in various roles and leadership.
Jim Stith is serving as our lead teacher from Newcastle and continues to improve our use and training of muon detectors. Chad Ronish, former lead teacher, is serving as the center director and coordination the business end of the center and Jim and the other teachers continue to explore particle physics activities in their schools and communities.
In the spring of 2022, the center continued our relationship with the Sanford Underground Research Facility by hosting a Neutrino Masterclass for teachers and students of the center on-site at SURF. The students were treated to presentations on neutrino science, hosting science at SURF, and tours of the hoistroom and yates ramp to see the equipment that makes the facility work.
The Quarknet Summer workshop was hosted at SURF in July and focused on the use of coding to study and interpret data sets. The center welcomed 4 new teachers and included a group of veteran teachers as well. Charlie Payne and Mike Plukinski led the workshop for the teachers and the teachers felt the workshop was very valuable and useful for their classrooms. Of our 4 new teachers, 2 of them work primarily with middle school students and 1 is a teacher at a distance learning center where she reaches hundreds of students every year and will be able to promote quarknet in schools that are not able to find science teachers for their classrooms. We are still exploring this relationship and finding the best ways for her to utilize and incorporate our resources.
We also brought in a teacher and professor from east river to join/partner/mentor as they are trying to create a quarknet presence in our densely populated eastern half of the state. Jing Liu from the University of South Dakota is exploring options on how he can facilitate quarknet activities for our east river teachers and students.
The Quarknet teacher group finished their workshop by participating in the activities of Neutrino Days at the SURF. Teachers provided hands-on activities for event attendees where they could explore radioactivity, observe a cloud chamber, and work with a CRDM to see to muons crashing down to the earth. The group interacted with over 500 people during their visit.
One of the SURF interns used a CRDM to explore the logistics of operating in the underground to measure muons vs depth for the science team at SURF. Further study is planed for next year as we continue to develop procedures for deploying the CRDM at the different levels. We are also working to get all of our center CRDMS operating and in use in the classrooms.