A Teaching Toolkit
for Particle Physics in High School
Nicholas Sfiroudis
Advisor: Dr. Christina Love
Physics Department, Drexel University
Abstract
The Lesson
In the last part of the 20th century, physicists have developed the Standard
Model of Particle Physics. Although this is our best “theory of everything”, the
Standard Model is rarely mentioned in a high school physics curriculum. The
goal of this work is to introduce the Standard Model, as well as its current
known limitations, to high school students in order to increase their level of
interest in science and their level of learning. This will be done through diverse
teaching methods consisting of teaching slides, interactive group activities, and
a custom made computer application. A teaching toolkit is being developed to
combine and distribute these activities. The toolkit will be tested in high school
classrooms with pre and post surveys to gauge the success of our work. At the
conclusion of this work, we hope to have a complete open source teaching
toolkit that other high school teachers around the world can use and adapt.
There were multiple components that needed to be created for this
project, including teaching slides and teacher notes. The teaching
slides were designed so that any teacher could use them and the
teacher notes are to prepare the teacher prior to the lesson. The goal
is to have a minimal amount of unnecessary preparation by the
teacher and make the implementation of this lesson as seamless as
possible. The content of the slides will teach a variety of topics such
as fundamental particles and forces, Feynman diagrams, dark
matter, and dark energy. Additionally, we have designed interactive
activities, including an inquiry-based computer program.
Data
The Program
Motivation
The state of the current high school curriculum for physics is rarely directly
related to exciting physics heard about in the news or learned about in television
shows, such as Cosmos. While, the topics taught in high school physics are
valuable to understand the physics of everyday life and absolutely necessary for
fundamental critical learning and problem solving skills, they may not produce
the excitement and curiosity one would hope. With this project our goal is to
introduce our current “theory of everything” called the Standard Model of
Particle Physics to high school students through a complete teaching toolkit that
includes lesson plans with active and diverse learning and open-source original
applications. The goals of our work are to both increase high school students
interest in science as well as to increase their level of learning through diverse
and active lesson plans. Our motivation for increasing their level of interest in
science stems from the need for more Science, Engineering, Technology, and
Mathematics (STEM) workers.
The inquiry-based computer program will allow students to create
common particles such as protons and neutrons from the
fundamental quarks. They will be able to try different combinations
of quarks to experiment and create these particles. This will be
useful in conveying the idea that quarks are really the fundamental
building blocks of atoms. It is also an interactive way of learning
the various combinations of quarks that create the building blocks
of matter. Initially the program was written in Java using a package
called JavaFx. While working through the project the decision was
made to switch the main programing language. This was because
JavaFx was not giving the desired outcomes. Therefore, we chose
to use a programing engine called Unity. Using Unity we were able
to achieve an engaging educational experience. Unity is an open
source software that is used to create games. While using Unity you
can script in C# or JavaScript. In this case we chose to script in C#
due to prior experience.
The complete teaching toolkits will be piloted in two schools: Haverford
High School in Pennsylvania and Moorestown High School in New
Jersey. All of the resources and materials will be delivered to the teachers
and schools prior to piloting the lesson and then afterwards will be open
source for anyone who wishes to use and/or adapt. Pre and post surveys
will be filled out by the students so that we can gauge the success of the
toolkit and make appropriate changes. In order to test the lesson in these
schools and have the students fill out surveys, the Institutional Review
Board (IRB) at Drexel University will have to approve the research with
human subjects. Approval from the teachers has already been secured and
we currently have approval from the school districts. The last stage of
approval is coming from the Drexel IRB very soon.
Conclusion
A complete teaching toolkit on the Standard Model of Particle Physics
has been designed containing teaching slides, teacher notes, a website,
activities, and an inquiry-based computer program. The entire toolkit,
including the source code for the program, will be open-source and
available through the website. The toolkit will be piloted by high school
teachers and there will be pre and post surveys to help us analyze the
effectiveness of the methods and content of the toolkit. After the pilot we
hope to see an increase in the level of interest in physics and we hope to
see our computer program help students learn these complicated physics
topics.
References
Kirk, B. J. (2011). Retrieved from Technically Philly: http://technical.ly/philly/2011/12/05/stem-graduation-rates-show-uphill-battle-with-math-and-science-in-school-district/
Nobrega, F. K. (Jan 2013). The LHC and Our Daily Physics. Revista Brasileira de Ensino de Fisca.
Rainie, C. F. (2015). Retrieved from Pew Research Center: http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/29/public-and-scientists-views-on-science-and-society/
Zweig, G. (1964). An SU_3 Model for Strong Interaction Symmetry and its Breaking.