Education and Public Outreach at the Soudan Underground Lab

该奖项支持苏丹矿山地下实验室的公共推广计划，这是该国唯一一个游客可以参观运行中的地下高能粒子物理和天体物理设施的地方。弱相互作用粒子的研究处于这两个领域的前沿，也是实验室实验的主要目标。该实验室位于明尼苏达州立公园，每年约有4000名公园游客冒险进入地下2341英尺的地方参观该设施。主要实验包括主注入器中微子振荡搜索（MINOS）和低温暗物质搜索（CDMS）。MINOS是一个长基线中微子实验，旨在观察中微子振荡现象，这种现象与中微子质量有关。在苏丹运行的CDMS探测器是为一系列实验设计的，直接用于探测弱相互作用大质量粒子（wimp）形式的粒子暗物质。今年夏天，两名高中科学教师和三名本科生实习生将在实验室工作。他们的主要职责是帮助进行每天两次的“物理之旅”，并向公园的游客解释实验室和科学。然后，他们将利用这些经验和他们的科学教育技能来改进实验室的推广计划，并制定课程计划和教育材料，供许多学校团体在学年期间实地考察实验室时使用。他们还将参与实验室实验的研究项目，不仅是较大的MINOS和CDMS项目，还有几个较小的涉及低背景测量研究和开发的项目。一位兼职的外联协调员常年为学校和社区团体工作。该奖项还将支持实验室的年度开放日。

This award supports the public outreach program at the Soudan Mine Underground Laboratory, the only place in the country where visitors can tour an operational underground high energy particle physics and astrophysics facility. The study of weakly interacting particles is at the forefront of both fields and is the primary objective of experiments at the Lab. The Lab is hosted in a Minnesota State Park, where each year approximately 4,000 of the Park's visitors venture 2,341 feet underground to see the facility. The main experiments include the Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search (MINOS) and the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS). MINOS is a long-baseline neutrino experiment designed to observe the phenomena of neutrino oscillations, an effect which is related to neutrino mass. The CDMS detectors operating at Soudan are for a series of experiments designed directly to detect particle dark matter in the form of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs).Two high school science teachers and three undergraduate interns will work in the lab over the summer. Their primary duty is to help give the twice-daily "physics tours" and explain the lab and the science to visitors of the park. They will then use this experience and their science education skills to improve the lab's outreach program and develop lesson plans and educational materials for use by the many school groups which visit the lab on field trips during the school year. They will also participate in research projects with the experiments in the lab, not only the larger MINOS and CDMS projects but several smaller ones involved with Research and Development for low background measurements. A half-time outreach coordinator works year round with school and community groups. This award will also support the annual Open House at the lab.