Outreach
The cosmic ray group at Columbia is involved in several efforts to educate the public about science and cosmic ray physics. Here are some of our ongoing efforts.
Cosmic Extremes
Cosmic Extremes is a brochure meant to brief interested high school students and teachers on the history and future of cosmic ray physics, the oldest branch of modern particle physics. While it discusses cosmic ray research at all energies, Cosmic Extremes focuses mainly on the mystery behind ultrahigh energy cosmic rays (UHECRs), the most energetic particles in the universe.
The brochure is available in PDF format; those interested in obtaining a hard copy may do so by contacting Brian Connolly.
New York Schools Cosmic Particle Telescope (NYSCPT)
The New York Schools Cosmic Particle Telescope is a joint program between New York University, Barnard College, and Columbia University. Proposed by Glennys Farrar of New York University, NYSCPT is a ground-based array of detectors that, with the cooperation of several hundred New York City schools, could in the future become large enough to observe ultrahigh energy cosmic rays with high statistics.
As part of this project, the Columbia cosmic ray group is working with several high schools in New York City (beginning with the NYSCPT workshop in summer 2002), providing equipment and instruction to interested high school classes.
We use an electronics board built at Fermilab as part of the QuarkNet program. QuarkNet is a national program designed to expose high school students to the equipment and techniques used in high energy physics.
The NYSCPT project, besides providing physics training and instruction to students, might in the future make precision measurements of cosmic particle air showers. In other words, not only will this yield clear outreach benefits, but also an important physics measurement.
