Minutes of ATLAS Education/Outreach Committee

14 September 1999

Minutes of the ATLAS Education/Outreach Committee meeting

The meeting was attended by spokesperson P. Jenni, deputy spokesperson T. Akesson, M. Barnett, C. Brock, C. Daum, S. de Gennaro, J. Dolejsi, E. Johansson, C. Kourkoumelis, L. Silverman Gaillard, L. Micu, A. Pascolini, R. Vanden Broeck, J. Visser

NEXT MEETINGS

  • If previous patterns are followed, the next meeting will be on Tuesday, 8 February 2000 at 14h.
  • The following ATLAS week is a overview week at Dubna in Russia during the week June 21-27. Jenni hopes the committee will have a presentation during the plenary session. It is to be decided if the committee will have a meeting.
  • Another meeting is likely to be on Tuesday, 3 October 2000 at 14h.

ATLAS images (assembly area)

Technical Brochure
Language seems to be nearly final. Photos are needed; please contact Erik Johansson. The layout is mostly set.

VIDEO
1. Video Financing

Due to the fine efforts of C. Daum and others, we now have full funding for the ATLAS video. Some of these commitments are more firm than others, but I believe that we can proceed assuming that CERN will cover any small shortfalls.

NIKHEF 25 kCHF
USA 15 kCHF
INFN 12 kCHF
Germany 10 kCHF
Saclay 3 kCHF
Spain 8 kCHF
Britain 12 kCHF
Sweden 3 kCHF
Czech R 3 kCHF
-----------
TOTAL = 91 kCHF ($ 60k)

2. Video Schedule

  • early December 1998: Erik Johansson and I will go to NIKHEF to review early drafts of the video, perhaps mostly animations and more detailed scripts.
  • February 1999: At the ATLAS week meeting, the committee hopes to view portions of the video and provide our input.
  • June 1999: A full (semi-final) draft may be presented to the ATLAS collaboration, at a plenary meeting (ATLAS week). Based on comments received, a final version should be completed shortly thereafter.
3. Video discussion
  • Animation: Concerns were expressed by several people that animations are difficult to do with physics accuracy and to make intelligible to the audience (the general public). 50% of our colleagues and friends may complain about almost any version animating physical processes. Every precaution should be taken to do these well.
  • Higgs: the difficulties of explaining the Higgs boson were discussed and several options mentioned. There was no general consensus.
  • Other physics motivations: Concerns were raised that the video should discuss physics motivations beyond the Higgs (which might be discovered before LHC).
  • Pictures of detector assembly: Drawings from Project Engineering showing the assembly of the ATLAS detector in the assembly hall were shown and suggested for use in developing the video.
  • Use by media, schools: There was discussion of how the video would be used by the media and schools, and about whether a 7-minute version would be useful. There seems to be a lot of variation in expected usage depending on country.

US-ATLAS brochure is completed and available. 10,000 copies were printed.

ATLAS Photographs: Dolejsi and Barnett are discussing the best means of handling ATLAS photographs.

The remainder of the minutes is devoted to the following report:

QuarkNet progress report
also see http://quarknet.fnal.gov)
(see a forthcoming CERN Courier article on QuarkNet)

  • QuarkNet is an outreach program for students and teachers that has begun in the US and is expected to expand to Europe (and possibly elsewhere) in the future. It has 4 full-time staff members in addition to the physicist principal investigators.
  • QuarkNet will involve 100,000 students from 600 US high schools in:
    • Web-based analysis of real data
    • Collaboration with students worldwide
  • Through inquiry-oriented investigations students will learn kinematics, particles, waves, electricity and magnetism, energy and momentum, radioactive decay, optics, relativity, forces, and the structure of matter.
  • QuarkNet will establish 12 centers each year over the next five years in US universities and laboratories participating in ATLAS and CMS. Initially, each center will include two mentor physicists and two high school physics teachers.
  • These teachers will hold eight-week paid summer research appointments under the mentorship of the local center physicists. Teachers, with the help of local mentor-physicists, will take part in the construction and testing of detector components, create data sets and develop on-line experiments for students and help develop classroom detectors.
  • In succeeding academic years the teachers will extend their research work to the classroom. They will also work with the physicists to design a research program for up to ten other area teachers who will join the center in the second year.
    • 25 teachers are on board. They have completed their summer of research.
    • We held a one-week workshop at Fermilab for all the teachers.
    • Staff worked with the instruction design consultant to assemble materials to assist the mentors and lead teachers prepare for the Year 2 program.
    • The evaluators are impressed with the caliber of the teachers and mentors.
    • It is clear that teachers are doing some exciting research and making contributions to detector construction. For example, two teachers recently participated in a teleconference in which they presented and defended their work on optical decoder units to collaborators from 3 or 4 research groups. Two other teachers went going to CERN in August to do a beam test. Their mentor said he would not think of going without them because they are the ones who designed the calorimeter and will be the ones to know what goes wrong.
    • Staff and the evaluators visited all of the research groups this summer. Things are going very well!