Teaching Modern Physics - QuarkNet - Fermilab

QuarkNet is a nationwide program that connects high school physics teachers to scientists
working at high-energy physics experiments. The goal is to bring this cutting-edge physics to the
students. Teachers meet throughout the year with researchers at universities and research
facilities.
Our Chicago QuarkNet group meets at Fermilab and has enjoyed our collaboration with the
scientists there. In the spring of 2004, our group decided that to bring high-energy physics into
the high school classroom, we needed to write some specific curriculum for teachers. We
focused on two concepts to achieve that goal. Our first was to write a specific weeklong unit that
a teacher could use, which focuses on the basics of high-energy physics. We feel that web
resources, activities, worksheets and test questions are essential to a physics teacher who may not
have the time to create such a plan from scratch. Our next goal is to give teachers the opportunity
to sprinkle high-energy physics topics into the yearlong curriculum. We have written larger items
such as labs and activities. We have also created something as simple as momentum problems
using high-energy physics as the topic. In either, the teacher can spark enthusiasm in students by
bringing in topics that will excite and inform them, as they are the current topics in the physics
world.
Our group hopes that this curriculum will be helpful to you in the classroom and will spark
interest in your students.
Sincerely,
The Chicago QuarkNet Section