Data Activities Portfolio

The Data Portfolio is a compendium of particle physics classroom activities organized by Data Strand, Level of student engagement, Curriculum Topics and NGSS Standards. Follow the links provided for information about using the Data Portfolio to plan your students’ experience. Level descriptions explain the data analysis skills that students apply at each level: tasks in Level 0 are simpler than those in Levels 1 and 2. Click on the links below to learn more.

We encourage you to visit this webpage often as we frequently update it with new activities and resources. Examples include adding an activity that incorporates data from World Wide Data Day, Spanish language translations of several activities, and activities that support data science through coding skills development either as stand-alone activities or as a resource for existing DAP activities.

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All materials are available under the Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

Activity Name	Data Strand	Level	Curriculum Topics	NGSS Practices
Calculate the Top Quark Mass Students use conservation laws and vector addition to calculate the top mass from event displays.	Cosmic Ray, LHC	Level 2	Conservation Laws, Spanish Language, Special Relativity, Standard Model, Skill: Uncertainty	1, 4, 5, 7
ATLAS Z-path Masterclass Students are physicists for a day at a university or lab where they work with physiists to how to analyze real particle physics data in the form of event displays.	LHC	Level 2	Conservation Laws, Nature of Matter, Skill: Histograms, Skill: Uncertainty	1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
CMS Data Express CMS Data Express is a short investigation in which students inspect and characterize W or Z events from the LHC.	LHC	Level 2	Conservation Laws, Nature of Matter, Skill: Developing Models, Skill: Histograms, Skill: Uncertainty	1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
TOTEM 2 Use quantum physics and LHC data to estimate the size of the proton.	LHC	Level 2	Instrumentation, Kinematics, Nature of Matter, Quantum Mechanics, Skill: Developing Models, Skill: Histograms, Skill: Uncertainty, Waves & Interference	2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
ATLAS Data Express ATLAS Data Express is a short investigation in which students inspect and characterize Z events in the LHC and distinguish muons from electrons.	LHC	Level 2	Conservation Laws, Instrumentation, Nature of Matter, Skill: Developing Models, Skill: Histograms, Skill: Uncertainty	1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Mean Lifetime Part 2: Cosmic Muons Students learn how physicists measure muon lifetime.	Cosmic Ray	Level 2	Half-Life/Mean Lifetime, Nature of Matter, Skill: Histograms, Skill: Uncertainty, Spanish Language, Special Relativity	2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8
ATLAS W-path Masterclass Students are physicists for a day at a university or lab where they work with physicists to how to analyze real particle physics data in the form of event displays.	LHC	Level 2	Conservation Laws, Nature of Matter, Skill: Histograms, Skill: Uncertainty	1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
CMS Masterclass J/Psi Students are physicists for a day at a university or lab where they work with physicists to learn how to analyze real particle physics data in the form of event displays.	LHC	Level 2	Conservation Laws, Nature of Matter, Skill: Histograms, Skill: Uncertainty	1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Making it ‘Round the Bend - Quantitative Students measure the effects of electric and magnetic fields on particles.	LHC	Level 2	Electricity & Magnetism, Instrumentation, Skill: Developing Models, Skill: Graphing	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Mean Lifetime Part 3: MINERvA Students collect data from muons which decay in the MINERvA detector in the Fermilab NuMi beamline to understand particle decay and determine the muon lifetime.	Cosmic Ray, Neutrino	Level 2	Half-Life/Mean Lifetime, Kinematics, Nature of Matter, Skill: Developing Models, Skill: Histograms, Skill: Uncertainty	2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8