Education and Public Outreach at the Soudan Underground Lab

University Of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth MN

Investigators

Abstract

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.