Proposed Role of Experimental High Energy Physics

The High Energy Physics group is interested in developing an interactive education module targeted to high school students and undergraduate students to make them more familiar with the properties of nuclear radiation, nuclear medicine and elementary particles. The educational module features a "hands-on" unit containing radioactive sources and detectors sensitive to charged particles and photons that can be remotely manipulated with simple computer controlled robotic units. The power of the internet technology included in this proposal will allow the students to manipulate the experimental apparatus, access multimedia ancillary material (video clips, computer simulation of radioactive decays, interactive tutorials). In addition videoconferences can be organized to train high school teachers to take advantage of this instrumentation not readily available in their classrooms and laboratories. Furthermore we can introduce links to experiments in particle physics, nuclear medicine and other modern diagnostics tools to illustrate the wide variety of applications of the scientific facts explored by the students".