HdA Astroparticle Project wins "Energy for Education" Prize
New gear will see first use at JuniorAkademie Baden-Württemberg
HdA has won a monthly prize in the competition "Energy for Education" of GasVersorgung Süddeutschland (GVS), an energy company in Southern Germany. The prize, including EUR 1000 in prize money, was awarded to the project "Cosmic Radiation - Particle Showers from Space". For this project, HdA staff member Carolin Liefke in cooperation with Dominik Elsässer from Würzburg University are currently developing an improved version of the "Kamio-Can", a simple detector that allows pupils grade 8 to 12 to detect cosmic radiation. Cosmic radiation accounts for roughly 10 percent of the natural radiation background for the inhabitants of Europe.
Starting the end of August, the detector set will play a key role in the astronomy course at JuniorAkademie BadenWürttemberg, a summer school for students aged 14 to 16 from the state of Baden-Württemberg. The project will also be presented at the teacher training workshop that is part of the annual meeting of the German Astronomical Society on September 27, 2013, in Tübingen. Based on the feedback gathered at those two events, a definite version of the hands-on experiment will be developed for use in Haus der Astronomie workshops.