20-04-2025
South Pole physics lesson in the Black Hills area
RAPID CITY, S.D. (KELO) — High school students in the Black Hills interested in physics got to participate in a hands-on study of data from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in the South Pole.
This Icecube Masterclass allows high school students to get a look at how professionals study physics.
'We gave them a lecture and now they have hands-on experience basically reproducing one of our recent applications to find the first evidence of an astrophysical neutrino flex. And they're doing every step that has to be done by the physics, they are doing that right now in the classroom,' assistant physics professor Matthias Plum said.
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Students were also able to listen to different speakers, like research scientist Larissa Paul who just returned from the South Pole observing the School of Mines detector involved in this masterclass.
'Having us go through all the data they've collected over the past few years and looking through and having us find irregularities, ' Stevens High School junior Wyatt Brumbaugh said. 'Picking out which data points and things like that are corresponding to the neutrinos or corresponding to cosmic rays things like that. And just the differences of how that all can be replicated.'
'So it is the study of finding the highest electron neutrinos, which are one of the most elusive particles in the known universe,' ,' Plum said. 'And they will help us try to figure out where does the highest energy detect radiation of the universe comes from, that's what we're trying to do.'
Plum is hoping that events like these can help inspire high school students to join the physics field.
'I have an interest in physics, hopefully doing a double major with nursing and physics. So this was kind of like an intro to see what a high school versus college physics course was going to look like for me and I thought that this would be a great comparison,' Brumbaugh said
Through these events students are able to gain insight into how scientists use massive observatories to decode the universe.
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