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Reflections of QuarkNet Teachers and Staff
Ken Cecire
Quarknet Center: QuarkNet Staff
Role: Staff
School: Hampton University
Role: Staff
School: Hampton University
On a cold afternoon in January 1999, I was summoned from my classroom to Uncle Ken McFarlane's office at Jefferson Lab, our hometown accelerator facility in Newport News. He offered me a job with QuarkNet along with an assignment: find out what the heck QuarkNet is. I've been finding out for ten years now. If pressed, I can offer a description, but the real truth is that there is always more to it.
QuarkNet is about great teachers and great physics. We work to improve physics education but we have to admit that the folks who come to QuarkNet are a rare group: teachers who engage students, care deeply about physics and physics education, and want to always do more and better. The way we improve education is to bring students and teachers face-to-face with some of the most exciting physics in the world from the Tevatron and the LHC. We start with great stuff all around.
The QuarkNet staff has aimed to bring physics teachers into the culture of particle physics. What we've actually done - all of us in QuarkNet - was to create a culture of our own. A culture can be defined by its seemingly random features. The wider American culture has the Constitution and Wendy's and the Electoral College and the infield fly rule and sunsets on the Chesapeake Bay. These are pixels which, taken together, start to form a picture of what we are all about. So it is with QuarkNet: the kids' table at Aunt Marge's, a detector in every pot, Extended Stay in Naperville, Randy's unexpected physics metaphors (give him a few ohm-farads to explain), coffee and chocolate croissants at CERN, ATLAS vs. CMS, DZero vs. CDF, Merriam vs. Fetsko, Fetsko vs. Wadness, Rylander, Bob's nautical references, Z decays, Beth's e-mails signed "Peace," Helio's crazy ideas that always work, Summer's blog posts, EVO, teacher lunches in Mayaguez, Benten, cawfee tawk with Jean, discussing the joys of geekdom with Kris, the climb up St. Theresa Avenue to Roxbury Latin, sleeping or reading e-mail in plenaries . . . and one more thing.
Andi. I never really told Andi Erzberger how much her friendship meant, how much she did for QuarkNet in the early years, or how much we were all going to miss her. I hope, where she is now, she has a good Internet pipe and can read this one word:"Thanks."
QuarkNet is about great teachers and great physics. We work to improve physics education but we have to admit that the folks who come to QuarkNet are a rare group: teachers who engage students, care deeply about physics and physics education, and want to always do more and better. The way we improve education is to bring students and teachers face-to-face with some of the most exciting physics in the world from the Tevatron and the LHC. We start with great stuff all around.
The QuarkNet staff has aimed to bring physics teachers into the culture of particle physics. What we've actually done - all of us in QuarkNet - was to create a culture of our own. A culture can be defined by its seemingly random features. The wider American culture has the Constitution and Wendy's and the Electoral College and the infield fly rule and sunsets on the Chesapeake Bay. These are pixels which, taken together, start to form a picture of what we are all about. So it is with QuarkNet: the kids' table at Aunt Marge's, a detector in every pot, Extended Stay in Naperville, Randy's unexpected physics metaphors (give him a few ohm-farads to explain), coffee and chocolate croissants at CERN, ATLAS vs. CMS, DZero vs. CDF, Merriam vs. Fetsko, Fetsko vs. Wadness, Rylander, Bob's nautical references, Z decays, Beth's e-mails signed "Peace," Helio's crazy ideas that always work, Summer's blog posts, EVO, teacher lunches in Mayaguez, Benten, cawfee tawk with Jean, discussing the joys of geekdom with Kris, the climb up St. Theresa Avenue to Roxbury Latin, sleeping or reading e-mail in plenaries . . . and one more thing.
Andi. I never really told Andi Erzberger how much her friendship meant, how much she did for QuarkNet in the early years, or how much we were all going to miss her. I hope, where she is now, she has a good Internet pipe and can read this one word:"Thanks."