Lincoln (Neb.) - Sept. 7, 2001 - The University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Cosmic Ray Observatory Project has added five Nebraska high schools and Wayne State College to its list of participants in the 2001-02 academic year.
The new high schools are Anselmo-Merna, Lincoln Lutheran, Lincoln High, Omaha Westside and Osceola. They join last year's initial group, Elkhorn Mt. Michael, Lincoln Northeast, the Lincoln Science Focus Program, Norfolk and Omaha Marian, to give CROP 11 sites.
Created last year through a $1.34 million grant from the National Science Foundation, the CROP project seeks to install cosmic ray detectors at as many schools as possible across Nebraska and link them via the Internet in what would be the geographically largest cosmic ray detection network in the world. Each school's equipment includes a detector to register the impact and energy of cosmic rays, a Global Positioning System device to record the exact time and place of the strikes, and a personal computer to keep track of the data and link it to other CROP sites.
A school's science classes can set up their own experiments, but they will also be part of a much larger experiment coordinated by NU physicists Greg Snow and Dan Claes.
"In the typical high school science experiment, everything is canned, presented recipe-style and designed to be completed in a 45-minute period," said Claes, a former high school physics teacher. "The answer is sort of predictable. But here, they will actually be part of a long-term, ongoing experiment that, like any real research project, carries no guarantees. They'll learn a little bit about what scientists do, but more importantly, they'll come away with the impression that what scientists do is fun and interesting, and worth pursuing."
The students and their teachers will be part of an effort to learn more about two key features of cosmic rays that scientists don't understand - where they come from and how they achieve their high energies.
"Some primaries (single protons) carry the same energy as a driven hockey puck," Claes said. "There is no known phenomenon, not even the explosion of a star, that we believe can drive a proton to that high an energy. Yet they exist, and we don't know where they come from."
Snow said the planned wide geographic distribution of CROP's detectors could help answer those questions.
"One of the nice features about our experiment is the detectors are spread out over a much larger geographic region than any of the other major enterprises that are being mounted to study cosmic rays," he said. "In a certain way, we have an unprecedented sensitivity to judging whether or not an area the size of Nebraska lights up all at once. Because of the GPS equipment we'll be able to tell if all the schools detect a big bunch of particles coincidentally."
Following is a list of teachers and students involved in the CROP project at the six new sites:
Wayne State: Todd Young, assistant professor of physics and astronomy, Rich Engel and Beth Johnson, students.
Anselmo-Merna: John Golden, teacher; Bridget Foley, Diane Hoyt, Theodore Haumont and Matt May, students.
Lincoln High: Jim Rynearson, teacher; Dan Hatch, Dimi Hua, Tri Huyhn and Tony Nguyen, students.
Lincoln Lutheran: Gary Loontjer, teacher; Hans Boeschen, Nate Ristow and Lindsay Zieg, students.
Omaha Westside: John Rogers, teacher; Kat Ingram, Dan Larsen and Allen Ratliff, students.
Osceola: Craig Ford, teacher; Preston Gilliam, Casey Kriewald and Kyle
Prososki, students.
For questions regarding these releases, contact:
tsimons1@unl.edu
(402) 472-8514, Fax: (402) 472-7825