Search

The African School of Fundamental Physics and Applications, also known as the African School of Physics (ASP), was initiated in 2010, as a three-week biennial event, to offer additional training in fundamental and applied physics to African students with a minimum of three-year university education. Since its inception, ASP has grown to be much more than a school. ASP has become a series of activities and events to support academic development of African students, teachers and faculties. We report on the eighth African School of Physics, ASP2024, organized in Morocco, on April 15--19 and July 7--21, 2024. ASP2024 included programs for university students, high school teachers and high school pupils., Comment: 23 pages, 24 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2302.13940

On April 15-19, 2024, as a part of the eighth African School of Physics, ASP2024, we organized a program for learners from selected high schools in the vicinity of Marrakesh, Morocco. In this event, within a week, we reached out to over a thousand high school students, aka learners, from many high schools in the region of Marrakesh. We present a summary report on these outreach activities., Comment: 15 pages

From November 26 to December 12, 2022, Shane Wood and Kenneth Cecire, QuarkNet staff members under the University of Notre Dame, traveled to South Africa as Lecturers in the African School of Fundamental Physics and Applications (ASP) 2022, held at Nelson Mandela University in Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth) within the same calendar period. ASP is held every other year in a different African country for two or three weeks for African graduate and advanced undergraduate physics students to expose them to cutting-edge physics content and analysis techniques that may not be as available in their home institutions. Since 2016, there has been an outreach component consisting of the High School Teachers and Learners Programs. Cecire and Wood were facilitators of these programs and also acted as lecturers for two regular ASP classes. (We will use the term "student" to refer to these university students and "learners" to refer to high school students, following the practice of ASP.) They played a very active role and were quite busy during their two-week involvement. The mission was successful in terms of reaching teachers, learners, and students with new and exciting ideas and in terms of building strong collaborative relationships.

The African School of Fundamental Physics and Applications, also known as the African School of Physics (ASP), was initiated in 2010, as a three-week biennial event, to offer additional training in fundamental and applied physics to African students with a minimum of three-year university education. Since its inception, ASP has grown to be much more than a school. ASP has become a series of activities and events with directed ethos towards physics as an engine for development in Africa. We report on the seven African School of Physics, ASP2022, organized at Nelson Mandela University, on November~28 to December~8, 2022. ASP2022 included programs for university students, high school teachers and high school pupils., Comment: 18 pages

International Masterclasses (IMC) enable high school students and teachers to work with particle physicists to analyze authentic data from contemporary experiments and experience being "physicists for a day". The IMC program has a worldwide reach, including several universities and research institutes in Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Sao Tom'e and Principe, and South Africa. As technical infrastructure in Africa improves, there is a great opportunity for many more African institutes to offer IMC on their premises. The authors will discuss the advantages of IMC to Africa, how institutes may join, and ways to overcome obstacles., Comment: Submitted to the Proceedings of the African Conference on Fundamental and Applied Physics, Second Edition, ACP2021, March 7-11, 2022 - Virtual Event

The African School of Fundamental Physics and Applications, also known as the African School of Physics (ASP), was initiated in 2010, as a three-week biennial event, to offer additional training in fundamental and applied physics to African students with a minimum of three-year university education. Since its inception, ASP has grown to be much more than a school. ASP has become a series of activities and events with directed ethos towards physics as an engine for development in Africa. One such activity of ASP is the African Conference on Fundamental and Applied Physics (ACP). The first edition of ACP took place during the 2018 edition of ASP at the University of Namibia in Windhoek. In this paper, we report on the second edition of ACP, organized on March 7--11, 2022, as a virtual event., Comment: 12 pages

To develop an increase in societal interest in the fundamental sciences of particle physics and particularly for maintaining the support structures needed to succeed in experiments that take several decades to develop and complete, requires strong educational back-grounding at all levels of the instructional system and notably at early stages in the process. While many (particularly young) students might show an early interest and aptitude for science and mathematics at the elementary level, the structures are not necessarily in place to capture, nurture and develop such nascent interests. To encourage and strengthen such interests, strong connections must be made at K-12 and Undergraduate levels. The paper discusses the on-going efforts and makes recommendations., Comment: Submitted to the Proceedings of Snowmass 2021, Community Engagement Frontier

This Snowmass2021 Contributed Paper addresses the role of the Particle Physics community in creating and fostering international connections in American education. It describes the pressing need to introduce students and faculty to the challenges and rewards of international collaboration, not only to develop the next generation of scientists and engineers for particle physics, but to maintain and build U.S. leadership on an increasingly competitive world stage. We present and assess current efforts in education and public engagement with an eye toward identifying those activities in need of change or increased resources to improve audience reach and program efficacy. We also consider possible new activities that might improve upon or complement existing programs, with the common goal of providing all U.S. students with the opportunity to benefit from a quality international scientific experience., Comment: contribution to Snowmass 2021

The sixth edition of the African School of Fundamental and Applied Physics (ASP) was planned for Morocco in July 2020 and was referred to as ASP2020. Preparations were at an advanced stage when ASP2020 was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The three-week event was restructured into two activities in 2021 -- an online event on July 19-30, 2021 and a hybrid event on December 12-18, 2021 -- and was renamed ASP2021. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, an online lecture series was integrated into the ASP activities. The ASP mentorship program, which consists of online engagements between lecturers and assigned mentees, continued in this way. ASP alumni studied one year of COVID-19 data of ten African countries to offer insights into pandemic containment measures. In this note, we report on ASP activities since the last in-person edition of ASP in 2018 in Namibia., Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures and 1 table

International Masterclasses (IMC) have developed since their introduction in 2005. Masterclasses for International Day of Women and Girls in Science (IDWGS) and World Wide Data Day (W2D2) are innovations that began two years ago and are going well. With IDWGS masterclasses, a new pathway has been opened for high school girls to be encouraged in physics. W2D2 establishes new ways to bring masterclass activities directly to high school classrooms. New masterclass measurements beyond those for the LHC have been developed and tested, notably the MINERvA neutrino masterclass, which is the first IMC offering in neutrino physics and the first based on a Fermilab experiment. In the MINERvA measurement, students are able to study interactions of a neutrino beam with carbon nuclei, using conservation of momentum to draw conclusions. Other masterclass measurements related to Belle II and medical imaging are also in the testing stage. More neutrino masterclasses are in development as well, especially for MicroBooNE. A longer-term goal is the creation of a DUNE masterclass measurement as that facility reaches the data-taking stage., Comment: Talk presented at the 2019 Meeting of the Division of Particles and Fields of the American Physical Society (DPF2019), July 29 - August 2, 2019, Northeastern University, Boston, C1907293

International Masterclasses are events for high school students that enable them to act as "particle physicists for day" by analyzing authentic data from particle physics experiments under the tutelage of scientists. International Masterclasses have been very successful and have grown with their focus on data from the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Recent developments that bring masterclasses to more students in more ways have been very exciting. The number of masterclasses and the number of countries with masterclasses have grown substantially. Outreach efforts such as masterclass workshops in developing countries, particularly in collaboration with the African School of Fundamental Physics and Applications, and a new International Day of Girls and Women in Science masterclass have yielded success. Most recently, there are new initiatives to expand masterclasses beyond the LHC, particularly into neutrino physics., Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures

Student and public understanding of new discoveries in particle physics are enhanced by preparatory activities. Such activities give the user experience and context to understand a representation of the data associated with the discovery and some familiarity with the topics associated with the discovery. The QuarkNet Data Portfolio is a developing model of high-quality activities that address this need., Comment: Presentation at the DPF 2015 Meeting of the American Physical Society Division of Particles and Fields, Ann Arbor, Michigan, August 4-8, 2015

The IPPOG and U.S. Particle Physics Masterclasses took place worldwide in March 2011. For the first time, all masterclasses used real LHC data. Students in the U.S. Masterclasses (that included participants in several countries outside the U.S.) analyzed both ATLAS and CMS data. QuarkNet has been evaluating the U.S. effort since 2008. The design of the LHC masterclasses and the results of this study will be discussed., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, written for Proceedings of DPF Conference 2011