hst 2006 participants Victims : aline guevara, rebeca lópez, helena howaniec, stacy mccormack - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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terrifying!!!!!

comic books to communicate science

introducing karl gill as The Boss

unbelievable!!!!!

amazing!!!!!

hst 2006 participants

Victims: aline guevara, rebeca lópez, helena howaniec, stacy mccormack

objectives

outreach to teenage audience
describe the amazing aspects of

CERN, the LHC, and CMS experiment

including (some) physics,

technology, applications

24 pages, contemporary style

similar to huyghens comic

‘objective titan’

the story will be centered around 2 kids sneaking into CERN/CMS
and their experiences

being in a recreation of the big bang

working groupactivites

looked at existing huyghens comic

materials: previous comic
collected feedback on style, content and usefulness
do’s and don’ts

considered the CMS comic

materials: storyboard, 4page brochure (draft)
discussed

the prototype storyboard
main ideas for images
main ideas for the story
how to make connections to high school physics concepts

WHERE ?

AT THE BORDER OF FRANCE AND SWITZERLAND, MANY COUNTRIES ARE WORKING TOGETHER AT CERN,

THE EUROPEAN CENTRE FOR NUCLEAR RESEARCH, ON AN AMAZING PROJECT.

IN A 27KM TUNNEL ABOUT 100M UNDERGROUND SITS THE WORLD’S BIGGEST SCIENTIFIC TOOL, A

PARTICLE ACCELERATOR CALLED THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER, OR LHC.

VAST CATHEDRAL-SIZED CAVERNS HOUSE GIGANTIC PARTICLE DETECTORS .

THE COMPACT MUON SOLENOID OR CMS, IS ONE OF THESE DETECTORS, A NEW GENERATION

PARTICLE HUNTER BUILT BY A WORLDWIDE COLLABORATION OF SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS.

WHY?

TO UNDERSTAND THE ORIGINS OF MATTER AND FORCES FROM

THE BIG BANG 14BILLION YEARS AGO, RIGHT UP TO THE PRESENT

DAY AND BEYOND.

JUST AFTER THE BIG BANG THE UNIVERSE WAS A VERY DIFFERENT

PLACE, A STRANGE SOUP OF EXOTIC PARTICLES AND ANTI-

PARTICLES TOTALLY UNLIKE THE STUFF WE’RE MADE OF TODAY.

MORE THAN 95% OF THE ENERGY AND MATERIAL THAT WE

KNOW EXISTS IN THE UNIVERSE REMAINS UNACCOUNTED FOR.

CMS AND LHC WILL TRY TO EXPLAIN THESE PUZZLES.

HOW?

BY ACCELERATING TWO BEAMS OF 100000 MILLION PROTONS

TO 99.9998% OF THE SPEED OF LIGHT AND THEN CRASHING

THEM TOGETHER HEAD-ON.

THE LHC CCELERATES THE PROTONS USING RADIO WAVES – THE

PARTICLE PICK UP SPEED LIKE SURFERS RIDING DOWN BIG OCEAN

WAVES BEFORE TO BE FOCUSED TO LESS THAN A HAIR’S BREADTH

FOR COLLISIONS AT THE CENTRE OF CMS.

CRYOGENIC SUPERCONDUCTING MAGNETS, COLDER THAN

OUTER SPACE STEER THE BEAMS ROUND AND AROUND

WHAT IS OBSERVED?

LIKE DETECTIVES, PHYSICISTS CAREFULLY SIFT THROUGH

ALL THE EVIDENCE RECORDED BY THE CMS DETECTOR.

LOOKING FOR NEW PARTICLES IS LIKE SEARCHING A FOR

NEEDLE LOST IN A THOUSAND HAYSTACKS. POWERFUL

ELECTRONICS AND COMPUTERS NARROW DOWN

THIS SEARCH WITH INCREDIBLE SPEED AND ACCURACY.

ARE THERE ANY APPLICATIONS?

PARTICLE PHYSICS IS FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH, AN IMPORTANT

HUMAN ENDEAVOUR SINCE ANCIENT TIMES. THE MAIN AIM IS TO

INCREASING OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE UNIVERSE.

NEVERTHELESS, SOME VERY IMPORTANT ADVANCES HAVE

COME OUT OF PARTICLE PHYSICS: MEDICAL IMAGING, NUCLEAR

MEDICINE AND THE WEB ARE AMONG THE MOST RECENT

DEVELOPMENTS.

WHAT’S NEXT? COME, JOIN IN AND MAKE IT HAPPEN……

WHAT HAPPENS?

EVERY 25 NANOSECONDS A FEW PROTONS COLLIDE AT THE CENTE OF CMS AND THE TEMPERATURE

MOMENTARILY PASSES A BILLION DEGREES, MAKING A VERY SMALL ‘BIG BANG’. PREVIOUSLY UNKNOWN

AND SUPER-HEAVY PARTICLES, EXTINCT SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME, MAY REAPPEAR FOR JUST THE

TINIEST FRACTION OF A SECOND. THEN THEY DISINTEGRATE, THEIR MASS CONVERTS TO ENERGY CREATING

A CASCADE OF MAYBE HUNDREDS OF MORE FAMILIAR PARTICLES THAT BLAST

INTO CMS. WE CAN SEE AND MEASURE THESE PARTICLES IN CMS AND LATER RECONSTRUCT WHAT HAPPENED.

now, if you are trying to make a comic

some info you need to know before you try

to write one of those…

do’s and don’t’s

comics won’t be understandable just because they’re comics!
only one structure, just a few topics, one conflict to solve
use a simple principle from literature:

“SHOW, DON’T TELL”

then please…

avoid phrases like “your friend the atom” or “the fantastic world of…” (???)

feedback from HST

positive attitude towards the use of a comic because it could fit in well with classwork
problems: there’s a lot of information, (it’s difficult to handle it all)

question remains of how to structure the use of the comic

classwork to discuss the relevant concepts
homework to read the comic

You probably have to ‘force’ the students to read it!!

feedback from HST

positive attitude towards the use of a comic because it could fit in well with classwork
problems: there’s a lot of information, (it’s difficult to handle it all)

question remains of how to structure the use of the comic

classwork to discuss the relevant concepts
homework to read the comic

You probably have to ‘force’ the students to read it!!

hst feedback for CMS comic storyboard

very interesting
too much material (science/technology topics)
potentially very difficult material (compared to huyghens and their own curricula)

how to work with the comic was the main discussion we had afterwards

we arrived at suggestions of how to connect to CMS/LHC to high school physics (see later)

discussions on (mental) imagery and story but…

tried to arrive at one single storyline/and one topic. but… The Boss strikes back!!!

not succeeded yet!

The Boss starting position was no more than one topic per page!! (and the Victims complain)
remember: main goal is not education, but science communication/outreach…

The Boss strikes back!!

but… there’s still hope

we do agree that the story should be an adventure and experience

NOT using too simplistic question/answer approach

may be insulting for the reader!

also:

-we have a few ‘chapter’ storylines that maybe can make one single story: big bang, kids sneaking into CMS, to imitate conditions just after the big bang. it’s a story that begins and closes with the biggest event in universe