ATLAS Student Event Challenge

1. ATLAS Student Event Challenge A possible opportunity for collaboration amongst LHC experiments interested in promoting student analysis of event data. But first a little diversion into American news and politics.

2. Education and Outreach

3. Time Magazine Cover Story “And the quality of education in math and science in elementary and high schools has plummeted, leading to a drop in the number of students majoring in technical fields in college and graduate school.” February 13, 2006 edition

4. President’s Radio Address President George W. Bush Math and science are critical to many of our country's fastest-growing industries, so we must encourage our children to take more math and science classes and make sure those classes are rigorous enough to compete with other nations. February 4, 2006

5. National Medal of Science Ceremony President George W. Bush We want young kids to think math and science are cool subjects, that it's okay to be a mathematician, that it's exciting to be a scientist. And there's no better way to make sure that young students are encouraged to take math and science than to have successful scientists explain to our students … the wonders of exploration. February 13, 2006

6. The Wonders of Exploration That is exactly what our education & outreach programs can do.

7. Visit to Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) November 05 Michael Barnett Howard Gordon Erik Johansson Markus Nordberg Mike Tuts Some of the ideas that follow were inspired by what we learned there.

8. With the extraordinary possibility to make ground-breaking discoveries, we have special opportunities to communicate the importance, context, and meaning of our accomplishments. The ATLAS Student Event Challenge (ASEC) will make high school students part of the ATLAS Experiment by sharing actual ATLAS events with them and giving them the tools to analyze these collision events.

9. A subset of these students may be part of teams (including their teachers) that will come to CERN for about a week to talk with physicists and engineers. These may be focused on milestone events such as the startup of LHC. These students will act as news reporters to students in their home countries possibly via blogs, websites, and webcasts. This news reporter role will allow students to share their excitement with many others. These student teams may also attract considerable attention from local news media in their home institutions.

10. The primary challenge of the program will be for student teams to examine actual and simulated events and to decode them to reveal the physics. The ultimate challenge would be to find actual events that may carry signatures for new discoveries, although this is unlikely since students will be able to study a small fraction of the total event set. We expect that something like 500 to 1000 high school teams might participate (QuarkNet has over 500 high schools in the US).

11. Goals • Attracting students to careers in science. • Educating the next generation of scientific leaders in our society. • Communicating how and why science is done. • Students and others will be excited as they “help” physicists find events that may be signs for dark matter, extra dimensions of space, mini-black holes, string theory, and other fundamental discoveries.

12. Two part program • A program for students (and their teachers) • A program for science centres (museums) and exhibition settings. (One of these latter settings might include CERN)

13. News media The news media will be interested in the small but finite possibility of students uncovering an exciting event. On major occasions they might wish to cover the special programs at science centres. On the local scene, they will be interested to report on the travels of student teams to CERN and may wish to reflect the reports that student teams send back home.

14. Animations Animations will show how ATLAS was constructed, how each of the major components detects the passage of particles, and how actual discovery processes are recognized. May incorporate aspects of computer game techniques to enhance the interest and learning.

15. Masterclasses Local universities and labs may wish to hold “masterclasses” – one-day workshops to familiarize students with the ATLAS Experiment and with the physics being pursued. Masterclasses can also take place simultaneously at several universities and labs. In 2005 the successful European Masterclasses attracted around 60 universities and education centres.

16. Learning with Events • ASEC will be a web-based educational project using simulated and real ATLAS events for particle event explorations. The student activities might start with relatively simple physics subjects: • Observation and reconstruction of Z • Search for high mass Z’ events • Observation and reconstruction of top events

17. Learning with Events (2) A simple example of possible research would be to study examples of simulated ATLAS events showing a variety of new physics events (supersymmetry, higgs, mini-black holes, etc.) along with Standard Model physics such as top quarks and Z bosons. Students would be guided to learn the patterns of the events, so they can separate mini-black-hole events from top quark events from other classes of events. They would then apply what they learned to a larger sample of simulated and real events.

18. Analysis Tools and the Grid ASEC will give students the opportunity to use virtual data tools and techniques to access and analyse both simulated and real ATLAS data, report their results as online posters, and have online discussions about their work with peers through blogs, wiki sites, and other communication tools.

19. Teacher Workshops The intention of the teacher workshops is to introduce particle physics in general and ATLAS physics in particular. These workshops will take place both at CERN and at participating universities and laboratories. The teachers will be introduced to our web-based particle-event analysis tools and help us further develop them.

20. ATLAS Science Centre and Exhibition Program The ATLAS Event Challenge program will be expanded to science museum settings, making use of many of the same techniques as in the student program. Exhibitions will be created combining our animations, movies, and displays with exploration of real and simulated events from ATLAS.

21. Funding • An experienced physicist-administrator based at CERN during critical periods to oversee the program, • Teacher network co-ordinator, • Programming assistance (and familiarity with graphics and the Grid), • Web designer, • Part-time help from teachers in program development, • A person skilled with animation and computer game techniques, • Travel funds for teacher workshops, • Travel funds for a meeting of the science centre advisory committee, • Continuing support for participating school teachers. • Will seek funding from: • foundations, companies, individuals,…

22. Summary The ATLAS Event Challenge will be an innovative global program using cutting-edge technology to enhance student education, inform the public, and bring exciting exhibits/programs to science centres. It will provide these audiences with access to real and simulated data and the provocative opportunity to participate vicariously in discoveries that may transform our thinking about our universe.

23. The End The End.