**Report of the 2004 QuarkNet Advisory Committee**

David Barney, Larry Gladney, Kevin McFarland, Ed Moyer, Elizabeth
Simmons

5 December 2004

***Affirmation of Past Efforts and Successes***

The QuarkNet professional team is to be commended for its proven track
record of success. From the Teacher Institutes, to the support efforts
for teachers in the field, to the summer research opportunities for
students, and to the development of online data analysis and
presentation tools, the commitment to quality is phenomenal. The
Advisory Committee (AC) affirms its excitement and support for the
efforts and results thus far.

With such success comes an important aspect of transformation: the need
for dissemination of results. We feel that it is worth increasing the
effort to document and publicize information about the program and its
results to a wider audience of policy makers, educators, and the
scientific community. As the program moves into the maintenance portion
of its life cycle, such exchanges of ideas can play an important role by
generating new potential sources of support, by funding professional
development efforts, by identifying university mentors, or by furthering
development of the online learning tools.

The AC also wishes to support the team's efforts with the high school
student research component. The support for centers to design and host
such experiences tailored to the local context is a natural and exciting
evolutionary step for the program. We are glad to hear that there are
plans to gather survey data from students next year. Such data
collection is important in order to make informed programmatic
decisions. Expanding such collection efforts to gather longitudinal data
from the past year's students is also recommended. Additionally,
gathering assessment data about the various sites in the form of
reflections is an important aspect in ensuring overall quality. Having
student research sites use the QuarkNet "brand" demands some measure of
quality control on your part. We do not wish to inhibit local creativity
or to overly centralize these exciting efforts; to use the QuarkNet
name, however without some assurance of quality is not desirable or
conducive to long--term sustainability.

## Support for QuarkNet Centers

The AC heard reports from the QuarkNet staff on the amount and type of
support needed for the 52 centers now associated with the project. Two
particular concerns were the level of support, financial and managerial,
needed to fully engage centers in low population density/rural areas in
project activities and to rejuvenate centers which have shown low levels
of activity over a period of a year or more. The latter constitute what
is referred to as "watch-list" centers.

The AC is concerned that the staff support given to watch-list centers
is too high given the needs of the project as a whole and the success
rate thus far shown for rekindling an acceptable level of self-sustained
activity at such centers. We strongly suggest that a policy be developed
by the QuarkNet staff which sets timelines and expectations for the
rejuvenation of these centers, especially with regards to involvement by
institutional mentors. Those centers which cannot meet these
expectations should be "turned off" in that they receive essentially no
support until they show evidence for a significant ramp-up in activity
relevant to QuarkNet. The AC strongly believes that centers cannot be
viable in the long-term without a high degree of commitment and energy
from the institution mentors and hence we stress the importance of
ensuring that such mentors are available for any site to be taken off
the watch-list.

With regard to centers in areas which are low population and/or low
income, the AC strongly recommends enhanced support, as needed. The AC
wishes to stress that increasing the geographic, ethnic, and economic
diversity of the centers and the populations they serve should remain an
overarching goal of the project staff. The terrific successes of the
QuarkNet model should be extended to as broad a set of teachers and
students as feasible in keeping with the SMET (Science, Math,
Engineering and Technology) needs of the nation. If some watch-list
centers fail to meet required goals, these centers should be dropped and
their resources devoted to existing centers in areas which need more
support or to new centers recruited specifically to increase project
diversity along the lines stated above.

The AC encourages the staff to continue to find ways to focus, as
needed, more managerial and creative support on the many successful
QuarkNet centers. The majority of centers will not need much attention,
but for those that are doing well and have the potential to increase
their reach to students or their support for teachers, the project staff
should continue to add their time and energy to aid in these efforts.
One example might be the creation of a true mentor community in which
especially successful ideas, lessons learned, student triumphs, software
tools, etc. can be advertised and traded. Finding creative ways to
collect and disseminate "best practices" by mentors could prove
especially helpful in keeping older centers working well through the
start of LHC data-taking.

***Web-based data analysis tools***

The progress that the two independent groups have made in commissioning
web-based interactive data analysis tools is impressive. The two tools,
the Cosmic-Ray Collaboration (CRC) analysis tool and OGRE are
complementary but have similar objectives: inquiry-based learning in the
classroom. The key features of the two projects are:

CRC Analysis Tool

-   Uses real data obtained from high-school-based detectors across the
    US

-   Well evolved user interface and intuitive layout; useful HELP
    features for students

-   Analysis is GRID-based

-   Event display (although rudimentary) very useful

-   Use of \"milestones\" to aid project completion

OGRE

-   Uses real data from CMS (beam test of HCAL at present, eventually
    data from the running experiment); hope to incorporate data from
    ATLAS

-   Is a distributed package that can be installed in local centers
    (universities, labs) with some data available at each center

The AC observes that the CRC approach of a centralized server with
GRID-based analysis tools seems far more realistic, as it minimizes the
manpower required for maintenance, and also allows users to access the
full amount of data at a single source.

The principle concern of the AC is that plans for the use of these tools
need further development. One minimal approach is simply to advertize
their presence via the QuarkNet network and to suggest to teachers some
simple analyses that could be performed by their students. Perhaps more
desirable would be to adopt an approach similar to that used in European
master classes planned in 2005 as part of the World Year of Physics (see
<http://lxsa.physik.uni-bonn.de/outreach/wyp/agenda.htm>, for example)..
Each masterclass involves a morning of lectures to high school students,
followed by a few hours of a project, whereby students use a package
called \"Hands on CERN\" (developed by one of the ATLAS Outreach
representatives, Erik Johansson, and colleagues) to analyze real data
from LEP. There are \~500000 LEP events available and each school
(typically there are eight schools involved each day) is "given" a
portion to analyze, to try to find the Z decay width for example. At the
end of the day the students partake in a video conference to CERN (the
host) and the other schools, where they compare their results etc. This
video conference gives the students a real sense of the
\"collaboration\" part of our field, and is extremely productive. The AC
notes that although schools may lack video conference facilities as a
rule, that solutions such as University hosting of conferences or the
VRVS system ([http://www.vrvs.org](http://www.vrvs.org/)), which only
require a cheap web cam and microphone, are available. This structured
approach to the use of the tools may even increase the participation of
some of the less active mentors/teachers, as it gives them a definite
project (and deadline).

In any case, one important requirement of these tools, whether their use
is structured or not, is the development of "canned examples" for
training the mentors, teachers and students. Indeed a definite plan for
the teaching of mentors/teachers may be required.

It was mentioned that the use of real data from the CMS and ATLAS
experiments may require discussion and support from the collaborations,
perhaps even the appropriate funding agencies. One example of leverage
that could be applied is to demonstrate that these tools are not only
useful for high school students but also for young researchers entering
the field. Both the CRC and OGRE projects could be used as a first step
towards training of these young researchers, to get them acquainted with
histograms/data presentation, ROOT (in the case of OGRE) and GRID tools.

In summary, the AC certainly feels that these tools have an exciting
future, and the emphasis now must be given to their use by the target
audiences.

***Active Steps to Enhance Program Impact on Students***

The QuarkNet program has demonstrated excellence in providing teachers
with a valuable opportunity to enhance their professional skills, most
notably through the associate teacher institutes, and the positive
impact of these experiences is well documented through ongoing
assessment of the program. Now that the program has reached this mature
stage, the advisory committee recommends that QuarkNet increase its
level of direct activity in encouraging the transfer of the teachers\'
experiences into their classrooms.

The AC notes that QuarkNet\'s chosen tool for ensuring the renewal of
existing centers past year three, the high school student/teacher team
research project, is already a positive step in this direction. We
recommend that the program seek ways to directly recognize and encourage
outstanding classroom-based authentic research and other activities
associated with the program. For example, the AC discussed ideas such as
a well-publicized QuarkNet "Student(s) of the Month" award, contact of
mentors and program staff with the principals and department heads of
participating students, etc. We note also that several of our
suggestions above for maximizing the impact of the web-based
collaborative research tools (CRC and OGRE) would naturally enhance this
aspect of the program. We are confident that the capable and energetic
QuarkNet staff and mentors can create a variety of such opportunities
and incentives for increasing student participation.