Atomic Girls is an initiative of the Saphir Millennium Institute that seeks to encourage girls in their first and second year of high school to develop their interest in science and prepare them for their first years of undergraduate science careers.
Cosmic radiation from deep space regularly strikes the Earth's atmosphere and this interaction generates a constant "rain" of muons, subatomic particles that pass through all types of objects (including steel and other solid materials). It is estimated that, at sea level, approximately 10,000 muons per minute per square meter arrive . Using small, simply constructed artifacts, such as the one in the photo, these muons can be detected. And, in fact, since muons pass through all kinds of materials, they can be used to generate large-scale tomographic images: in this way it has been possible to explore the interior of the pyramids in Egypt. inside the pyramids of Egypt and the nuclear reactors at Fukushimain Japan.
Image credit: Mission Support and Test Services LLC; source: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab)
This is a winter workshop in which a group of girls must individually assemble a mini muon detector, learn to program it to collect data, make notes on their measurements and, finally, write a report on their findings. The tools provided by this workshop - electronics, programming, scientific method and report writing - are cross-cutting to science and aim to give the girls skills that will be useful in their first years of higher education.