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Activity Description:
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Students experience the environment of scientific collaborations in this series of investigations into high-energy cosmic rays. From start to finish this is a student-led, teacher-guided project. Schools with cosmic ray detectors can upload data to the web. A virtual data portal enables students to share this data and associated analysis code with students at other schools whether or not those schools have their own cosmic ray detectors.
To begin, students check the performance of the detectors they have chosen for their study. They can then perform one of three investigations: muon lifetime, muon flux or extended air showers. Students post the results of their studies as online posters. Then the real scientific collaboration begins. Students can review the results of other studies online comparing data and analyses. Using online tools, they can correspond with other research groups, post comments and questions, prepare summary reports, and in general participate in the part of scientific research that is often left out of classroom experiments. |
