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Reflections of QuarkNet Teachers and Staff
Rich DeCoster
Quarknet Center: Fermilab/U Chicago
Role: Teacher
School: Niles West High School
Role: Teacher
School: Niles West High School
QuarkNet has provided me with many opportunities to use material from particle physics in my physics classes over the past decade. Also, I occasionally get to teach our "Topics in Astronomy and Modern Physics" course at Niles West. This is a post-physics senior-year elective at the regular physics level developed by my colleague, QuarkNet teacher Elizabeth Ramseyer, and myself. This course is offered every year at West and is now usually taught by Mrs. Ramseyer.
That first QuarkNet summer of 1999 was unforgettable. I worked at DØ and learned an amazing amount of physics. Every evening at sunset I would climb the walkway to the berm and watch the sun go down, first to the north of Wilson Hall and later to its south. Beautiful! Thank you, Jae Yu! And Tom Davis for sharing quarters and interesting stories from Oklahoma during that first summer.
The next summer (2000) we held our Associate Teachers Institute at Niles West High School, with the help of Jae Yu and Rob Roser. We became fascinated with the cosmic ray detectors in the form of phototubes and scintillator paddles (see attached pictures), a topic we followed up with over the next year. One highlight was a talk by Heidi Schellman who had just returned from a visit/meeting at Sudbury Neutrino Observatory; she brought us back the latest. Dr. Schellman had held a series of wonderful lectures in the trailers at DØ during that summer of '99 that I had attended faithfully and really enjoyed.
Over the years we have had some wonderful mentors: Jae Yu, Rob Roser, Don Lincoln and currently Mike Syphers and Jean Slaughter. Thanks to you all.
Tours of the facilities of Fermilab have also been memorable. Rob took us through the ropes of CDF and both Jae and Don led us through the center of DØ! We saw everything and have photos to prove it. Annual tours of Fermilab followed; thank you Nancy Lanning; also special tours down-and-dirty into the antiproton ring, assorted instrument assembly shops and into the depths during the open house at NuMi—or was it MINOS—were totally amazing and greatly appreciated. Pictures and ideas developed from these tours added authenticity to our class presentations.
Don Lincoln's great talks for us on dark matter, pentaquarks and other topics were greatly appreciated. He even autographed his book "From Quarks to the Cosmos" for us! His work on Z0 mass reconstruction was instructive; I use his activity in my class every year. Maybe it will be expanded upon to show kids about the Higgs?
In recent years our combined Fermilab-University of Chicago groups have developed curriculum and issued a document with HEP activities for classroom use. We were held together by the work of my former student, Jennifer Ciaccio, originally as associate QuarkNet teacher, but who ended up having the ability to keep us all together! Thanks Jenny! Last August we held a symposium at Fermilab, hosting some forty teachers for the all-day event. Marge Bardeen and the Education Office at Fermilab greatly facilitated this activity.
The last ten years have been great. My association with QuarkNet has been wonderful and allowed me to add a lot of modern physics material to my physics courses at Niles West and develop ideas that I have shared with others at various physics teacher venues.
Thanks QuarkNet, Tom Jordan and all the brilliant QuarkNet teachers I have worked with over the past decade.
That first QuarkNet summer of 1999 was unforgettable. I worked at DØ and learned an amazing amount of physics. Every evening at sunset I would climb the walkway to the berm and watch the sun go down, first to the north of Wilson Hall and later to its south. Beautiful! Thank you, Jae Yu! And Tom Davis for sharing quarters and interesting stories from Oklahoma during that first summer.
The next summer (2000) we held our Associate Teachers Institute at Niles West High School, with the help of Jae Yu and Rob Roser. We became fascinated with the cosmic ray detectors in the form of phototubes and scintillator paddles (see attached pictures), a topic we followed up with over the next year. One highlight was a talk by Heidi Schellman who had just returned from a visit/meeting at Sudbury Neutrino Observatory; she brought us back the latest. Dr. Schellman had held a series of wonderful lectures in the trailers at DØ during that summer of '99 that I had attended faithfully and really enjoyed.
Over the years we have had some wonderful mentors: Jae Yu, Rob Roser, Don Lincoln and currently Mike Syphers and Jean Slaughter. Thanks to you all.
Tours of the facilities of Fermilab have also been memorable. Rob took us through the ropes of CDF and both Jae and Don led us through the center of DØ! We saw everything and have photos to prove it. Annual tours of Fermilab followed; thank you Nancy Lanning; also special tours down-and-dirty into the antiproton ring, assorted instrument assembly shops and into the depths during the open house at NuMi—or was it MINOS—were totally amazing and greatly appreciated. Pictures and ideas developed from these tours added authenticity to our class presentations.
Don Lincoln's great talks for us on dark matter, pentaquarks and other topics were greatly appreciated. He even autographed his book "From Quarks to the Cosmos" for us! His work on Z0 mass reconstruction was instructive; I use his activity in my class every year. Maybe it will be expanded upon to show kids about the Higgs?
In recent years our combined Fermilab-University of Chicago groups have developed curriculum and issued a document with HEP activities for classroom use. We were held together by the work of my former student, Jennifer Ciaccio, originally as associate QuarkNet teacher, but who ended up having the ability to keep us all together! Thanks Jenny! Last August we held a symposium at Fermilab, hosting some forty teachers for the all-day event. Marge Bardeen and the Education Office at Fermilab greatly facilitated this activity.
The last ten years have been great. My association with QuarkNet has been wonderful and allowed me to add a lot of modern physics material to my physics courses at Niles West and develop ideas that I have shared with others at various physics teacher venues.
Thanks QuarkNet, Tom Jordan and all the brilliant QuarkNet teachers I have worked with over the past decade.