Education and Public Outreach at the Soudan Underground Lab

该奖项支持苏丹矿地下实验室的公众推广计划，该实验室是全国唯一一个参观者可以参观正在运行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是这两个领域的前沿，也是实验室实验的主要目标。该实验室设在明尼苏达州立公园内，每年约有4000名游客到地下2341英尺的地方参观该设施。主要的实验包括主喷射器中微子振荡搜索(MINOS)和低温暗物质搜索(CDMS)。Minos是一项长基线中微子实验，旨在观察中微子振荡现象，这种现象与中微子质量有关。苏丹的CDMS探测器用于一系列实验，直接探测弱相互作用大质量粒子(WIMP)形式的粒子暗物质。两名高中科学教师和三名本科生实习生将在实验室工作整个夏天。他们的主要职责是帮助提供每天两次的“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外展计划，并制定教案和教材，供在学年访问实验室进行实地考察的许多学校团体使用。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，还有几个参与研究和开发的较小项目，用于低本底测量。一名半职外展协调员全年与学校和社区团体合作。该奖项还将支持实验室一年一度的开放参观活动。

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.