UB Sets High School Physics and Arts Summer Program

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Aspiring physicists who also appreciate the arts are invited to apply for the University at Buffalo's first Physics & Arts Summer Institute for high school students, sponsored by the Department of Physics in the UB College of Arts and Sciences.

Students enrolled in the program, which will run from July 10 through Aug. 4, will build an exhibit for the Physics & Arts Exibition in the UB Department of Physics that honors, celebrates and de-mystifies the discipline for the general public.

"We want the high school students to help us communicate with the public about why physics is so exciting," says Doreen Wackeroth, Ph.D., assistant professor of physics at UB and developer of the summer institute.

Wackeroth noted that with the world's most powerful particle accelerator coming online next year in Geneva, Switzerland, this is an extremely opportune time to begin educating the general public about the fundamental physics questions that soon will be investigated.

During the institute, students will construct an exhibit featuring a spark chamber, a physics instrument that can make cosmic rays visible to the naked eye. Subatomic particles, created in collisions of cosmic rays with the Earth's atmosphere, cause a series of sparks along their path through the spark chamber.

Under the direction of a high school physics teacher and a UB undergraduate physics major, students attending the institute will design explanatory materials to go with the spark chamber exhibit, among them posters, Web pages and audio tours.

They also will attend lectures by UB professors on particle physics and on the arts, visit the particle accelerator at Cornell University, learn from UB's science librarians how to conduct scientific research online and lead members of the public on tours of the physics exhibit once it is complete.

The UB Physics & Arts Summer Institute is being funded by the education and outreach portion of a prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER award that Wackeroth recently received.

High school physics students and teachers interested in the institute should apply by April 25 at http://www.physics.buffalo.edu/pasi or contact Wackeroth at (716) 645-2017 ext. 175.