QuarkNet provides professional development and on-going support for physics teachers who get involved in the program. The professional development occurs primarily during a week long summer workshop on the SMU campus, and this is supplemented with various events during the academic year.
The teachers will help develop inquiry-oriented investigations by which their students will learn kinematics, particles, waves, electricity and magnetism, energy and momentum, radioactive decay, optics, relativity, forces, and the structure of matter.
The goals for teachers include a deeper understanding of physics content, an appreciation for the machinery of modern science, an introduction to inquiry-based teaching as well as evolution in individual teaching to a more student-centered mode of instruction.
The SMU QuarkNet program began in Summer 2000, and this has grown to a large and active network of high school teachers in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.
The summer QuarkNet program includes various lectures presented by both SMU faculty and the QuarkNet participants. The workshops also include projects where the participants construct selected demonstration projects for use in their own classrooms.
The workshops are usually in early August.
Randy Scalise or Simon Dalley if you are interested.
Monday 9:00-9:10 Welcome and Introduction
9:10-10:00 Origin and Fate of the Universe / Standard
Model - Rich Lines
10:30-11:30 (Continued) + Audience Feedback
1-5pm: Lab
Tuesday 9:00-10:00
PC Particle Physics Experiments for High
School Students - Darren Carollo
10:30-11:30 (Continued)
1-5pm: Lab
Wednesday 9:00-10:00 You Know More Physics
Than You
Realize - Allen Morris
10:30-11:30 High Energy Cosmic Rays - Stuart Wick
1-5pm: Lab
Thursday 9:00-9:30
Electric Potential Experiment - David Koch
9:30-10:00 Astronomy and Physics Labs on the Cheap
- John Cotton/Randy Scalise
10:30-11:30 (TBD) - Kris Whelan
1-5pm: Lab
Friday 9:00-10:00 Elegant
Universe video
10:30-11:20 Explanantion of video - Fred Olness
11:20-11:30 Wrap-up
12:00-1:30 Final lunch: Peggy Sue's BBQ
2-4pm: Lab
For information, please contact Randy Scalise
SMU QuarkNet High School Science Teachers Workshop
Click on picture for high quality version
Individual Pics of the 2003 Workshop Particiants
Randy Scalise has a drink of liquid nitrogen. (Don't try this at home!!!)
The SMUon
Project:
Resources provided by Jingbo Ye:
Movies and other useful resources: (Careful, some of these are big)
The Particle Adventure: The whole thing in a single zip file: (86M Zip File)
The ATLAS Movie: (185M Zip File)
The RHIC Movie: (123M Zip File)
Lectures we
borrowed from other sources:
Lectures by Luciano Maiani at CERN Summer School 2001 (2.4M PDF)
Lectures by Deborah Harris for Tevatron University 2002 (1.6M PDF)
CROP Project: Lectures by Gregory Snow (4.6M PDF)
Fermi: Interactions: Overview of High Energy Physics (6.8M PDF)
List and Pics of Participants: 2003
FTP File Area for misc documents and pictures: 2003
Darren Carollo takes 8 students to explore the Lewis & Clark Trail: (143K PDF)
What people are saying about QuarkNet: 2003
The Latest and Greatest: an update of the field (PDF
10M or ps.gz 9M ) from Pavel
Nadolsky
Experimental High Energy Physics (PDF
1.1M ) from Yongsheng Gao
Expanding Universe Lab (PowerPoint 103K) from Richard Lines
Man's Place in the Universe: Klein Bottles (PowerPoint 91K) from Dirk Horst
Presentations from Warren Puckett
Jewels of Modern Physics (PowerPoint 31M)
Quantum Mechanics (PowerPoint 15M)
Pre-AP Quantum Mechanics (PowerPoint 19M)
Atomic Spectra Lab (PowerPoint 6.8M)
Fred Olness' presentation: PDF Format (1.8 MB) or PPT Source (gzip format 2.0 MB)
Tom Coan's Lectures on Particle Detectors (web page)
Ken Taylor's Lectures on Accelerating Particles: PDF Format (4.9 MB) or PPT Source (zip format 4.5 MB)
Larry Grise's Information about Rutherford Scattering Lab (text file)
Ryszard Stroynowski's Lectures on the Goals of Particle Physics: PDF Format (434KB) or PPT Source (764KB)
Tamara Trout's Lectures on General Relativity: : PDF Format (2.6 MB) or PPT Source (gzip format 89 KB)
Chaos Circuit: How To Build Using OpAmps: : PDF Format (402KB) or ps.gz (487KB)
Sandra Lyman's report on Particle Detectors in Physics: Word.doc format (71 KB)
Richard Lines' report on the Cosmic Ray Telescope: PDF Format (277 KB) or PPT Source (251KB)
Randy Scalise's note on the cantilevered blocks demonstration: Text file (3K)
Flatland : A Romance of Many
Dimensions
A
classic--a must read.
There are many editions, but Dover is
$1.50 if you can still find it in print. ISBN: 048627263X
Paperback: 96 pages.
There are more expensive editions, or
you can download in free from Project Gutenberg
http://www.gutenberg.net/
Specifically, http://www.gutenberg.net/etext/201
The Shape
of Space : How to Visualize Surfaces and Three-Dimensional
Manifolds,
by
Jeffrey R. Weeks; Marcel Dekker; ISBN: 082477437X.
A
wonderful book that helps us visualize higher dimensional curved
spaces and nontrivial topologies.
Mr
Tompkins in Paperback,
by
George Gamow; Cambridge Univ Pr. ISBN: 0521447712.
A
classic! Provides an intuitive introduction to relativity,
cosmology, quantum mechanics, and more.
One Two
Three...Infinity: Facts and Speculations of Science
by
George Gamow; Dover Pub; ISBN: 0486256642.
From
the micro to the macro.
The First
Three Minutes : A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe.
by Steven Weinberg, Basic
Books; ISBN: 0465024378.
A
non-technical introduction to cosmology and the origins of the
universe.
The Ideas
of Particle Physics
by
G. D. Coughlan, J. E. Dodd, Cambridge Univ Pr (Short); ISBN:
0521386772.
Contains
wonderful explanations of basic particle physics phenomena with
simple, non-technical explanations.
The Evolution of Physics"
Einstein, Albert and Infeld, Leopold. ISBN:
0-671-20156-5
A
non-mathematical treatment of physics from classical through
relativity and quantum. Excellent intuitive insights and
a great read.
The Particle Adventure: The whole thing in a single zip file: (86M Zip File)
Under Construction
In
Search of the Edge
IN
SEARCH OF THE EDGE is a comprehensive documentary proving, fairly
conclusively, that the earth is flat!
An Inquiry
into the Shape of the Earth and the Disappearance of Andrea Barns.
Flat earth theory proved! A lesson in critical thinking & media
literacy.
ATLAS Experiment movie web site or a local copy: The ATLAS Movie: (185M Zip File)
Powers
of 10: A fascinating tour of the universe from the astronomical
to the quantum scales. (Fred's Rating: ***)
Hidden
by Time:
High-Speed Motion Events (Approximately 30 Minutes)
Over 70 high-speed sequences involving impacts, collisions, and
fluid behaviors. (Fred's Rating: ****)
Select
videos from the NOVA video series:
Runaway Universe
Tuesday, April 8, 2003. The program follows the efforts of two rival teams of astronomers as they search for exploding stars, map out gigantic cosmic patterns of galaxies, and grapple with the ultimate question: What is the fate of the universe? Here's what you'll find online:
Vanished.
January 30, 2001. The program investigates the mysterious disappearance -- and, half a century later, reappearance -- of Stardust, a civilian aircraft that crashed in the Andes in 1947.
Einstein Revealed
Meet the young patent clerk whose ideas about light, space, and time have transformed our view of the universe.
Select videos from the American Experience:
Rescue at Sea:
On January 23, 1909, two ships -- one carrying Italian immigrants to New York City, the other, American tourists to Europe -- collided in dense fog off Nantucket Island. In a moment, more than 1,500 lives became dependent on a new technology, wireless telegraphy, and on Jack Binns, a twenty-six-year-old wireless operator on board one of the ships.
The Geometry Center is a mathematics research and education center at the University of Minnesota. The Center has a unified mathematics computing environment supporting math and computer science research, mathematical visualization, software development, application development, video animation production, and K-16 math education.
The
Shape of Space:
Through computer animations and
fly-throughs, The Shape of Space explores the possible shapes of our
universe. It suggests the possibility of a finite but boundless
shape for our space. Using objects such as spheres, cylinders, and
Möbius stripsas possible shapes for a two-dimensional universe, The
Shape of Space investigates corresponding three-dimensional shapes,
and encourages the viewer to imagine how our universe could be
formed by one of these. (Fred's Rating: ***)
Not
Knot:
Not Knot is a guided tour into computer-animated
hyperbolic space. It proceeds from the world of knots to their
complementary spaces -- what's not a knot. Profound theorems of
recent mathematics show that most known complements carry the
structure of hyperbolic geometry, a geometry in which the sum of
three angles of a triangle always is less than 180 degrees. (Fred's
Rating: **)
Outside
In:
The award-winning computer animation Outside In explains
the amazing discovery, made by Steve Smale in 1957, that a sphere
can be turned inside out by means of smooth motions and self
intersections, without cutting or tearing. It convincingly
demonstrates how valuable can be in the communication of
mathematics. (Fred's Rating: ***)
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory advances the understanding of the fundamental nature of matter and energy by providing leadership and resources for qualified researchers to conduct basic research at the frontiers of high energy physics and related disciplines.
Fermilab's Pursuit of the
Fundamental: (17 Min)
Good introduction.
(Fred's
Rating: ***)
A Sense of Scale: (28 Min)
A bit longer than above
(Fred's Rating: **)
Accelerating Science: (5 Min)
Fun for the kids.
A "rap" music tour of the accelerator.
(Fred's
Rating: *)
Fermilab Web-based Instructional Materials
Online
educational resources for Physics teachers
A collection of
Java applets from Italy
NTNU Virtual
Physics Laboratory (Java Applets)
(seems not to work in
Netscape, only Internet Explorer)
Contemporary Physics Education Project
Particle Physics Education and Information sites
CERN Microcosom: Discover the World of Particles
North American Large
area Time coincidence Arrays (NALTA)
Fermi
News, 1 Feb. 2001: High Schools Join the Search for Most
Energetic Particles in the Universe
Klein
Bottles: Get your higher-dimensional objects here. Credit cards
accepted only in 3-dimensions.
SMU
Center for Teacher Education: Professional Development Opportunities
Bose-Einstein Condensate: suggested by Nathan Brown:
A NEW FORM OF MATTER: Bose-Einstein Condensation and the Atom Laser Wolfgang Ketterle, MIT
Bose-Einstein Condensation (BEC) Homepage
The Atom Builder, as suggested by Matthew Knee
National
Academy of Sciences Press webpage
Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards, National Research Council,
National Academy of Sciences: Board On Physics And Astronomy Reports:
Connecting Quarks with the Cosmos: Eleven Science Questions for the New Century
Physics in a New Era: An Overview (2001)
Link to the OLD QuarkNet page --- for historical reasons only.