QUARKNET

QuarkNet provides valuable research experience to teachers enabling them to teach the basic concepts of introductory physics in a context that students find exciting. Key features of QuarkNet are the establishment of mentor relationships between teachers and scientists, summer research experiences of up to eight weeks for teachers and students, and the development of a scientific and learning community within and among centers. QuarkNet provides opportunities for teachers to become more professional, resulting in the development of programming for peers in the center, in their schools and districts and beyond. Validated by outside evaluation, key instructional initiatives have emerged from QuarkNet and Interactions in Understanding the Universe, I2U2. e-Labs are online collaborative learning environments that allow students to conduct scientific investigations. QuarkNet/I2U2 provides a centrally hosted, scalable, parallel cyberlearning environment as a cloud-like service. Held at university and laboratory centers, masterclasses are institutes for teams of students who become physicists for a day, analyzing real experimental data and discussing results in videoconferences with peers and physicists.

QuarkNet is led by a group of teachers, educators and physicists with many years of experience in professional development workshops and institutes, materials development and teacher research programs and is supported in part by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, Fermilab, and collaborating experiments, laboratories and universities.