Atomic Girls is an initiative of the Saphir Millennium Institute that seeks to encourage girls between 14 and 18 years of age - high school students - 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 kinds of objects (including steel and other solid materials). At sea level, it is estimated that approximately 10,000 muons per minute per square metre arrive. Using small, simply constructed devices, such as the one in the photo, these muons can be detected. And, in fact, because 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 inside the pyramids of Egypt and Fukushima nuclear reactorsin Japan.
Image credits: Mission Support and Test Services LLC; source: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab)
This is a winter workshop in which a group of girls will individually assemble a mini muon detector, learn how 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.