Standards-Aligned Activities @ ProQuest

Our new set of ProQuest research lesson plans and activities address the following New York standards:

• English Language Arts: Standard 1—Students will read, write, listen, and speak for information and understanding. As listeners and readers, students will collect data, facts, and ideas; discover relationships, concepts, and generalizations; and use knowledge generated from oral, written, and electronically produced texts. As speakers and writers, they will use oral and written language to acquire, interpret, apply, and transmit information.
  
  
• Science: Standard 4.3—Matter is made up of particles whose properties determine the observable characteristics of matter and its reactivity.
  
  
• Technology: 4. Technological systems are designed to achieve specific results and produce outputs, such as products, structures, services, energy, or other systems.

ProQuest Platinum
Large Hadron Collider: Risks vs. Benefits

On a circular track a little over sixteen and a half miles in circumference, subatomic particles travel at nearly the speed of light (186,000 miles per second).

This new physics particle accelerator is called the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC. Situated at the premier European particle physics laboratory, called CERN (a French acronym for European Nuclear Research Council), the LHC can accelerate two beams of protons, traveling in opposite directions around the circular accelerator, and collide them head-on at several spots around the ring.

These collisions are recorded by gargantuan detectors that can be as big as 150 feet long, 80 feet tall, and weigh as much as twenty-five million pounds.

Colliders get their oomph from Einstein's equivalence of mass and energy, both expressed in the currency of electron volts. The CERN collider was designed to investigate what happens at energies and distances where the reigning Standard Model theory breaks down. The goal of more than 10,000 scientists from over 100 countries is to test various predictions of high-energy physics, including the existence of the hypothesized Higgs boson and of the large family of new particles predicted by the theory of super-symmetry.

After 15 years and $9 billion, and a showy "switch-on" ceremony on September 10, 2008, the Large Hadron Collider has yet to collide any particles at all. At that opening ceremony, the first beams were circulated successfully at low energy levels. Unfortunately, on September 19, a serious fault developed damaging a number of superconducting magnets. The repair required a long technical intervention and shutdown. However, CERN has announced that the LHC will again be ready to explore the mysteries of subatomic particles before the end of 2009.

Despite the amazing progress being made at CERN, there are naysayers who fear that these experiments will result in the destruction of the world.

Assign student to write a report of at least 150 words, or a presentation of at least seven slides about the pros and cons of the LHC. Students should cite at least three resources in their reports or presentations and address the following essential questions for critical thinking (you may want to add or substitute others):

• What are the anticipated benefits to the experiments with the LHC?
  
  
• What are the dangers that many claim will be the result of experiments with the LHC?
  
  
• How do the scientists at CERN counter the arguments of the critics?
  
  
• What is your opinion on potential for the world of the LHC and why?

Pathfinder 1: Topic Search > Type "Large Hadron Collider" > Click "Particle accelerators AND Particle physics"

Pathfinder 2: Topic Search > Type "Large Hadron Collider" > Click "Particle accelerators AND European Organization for Nuclear Research"

Use our custom ProQuest models for written or PowerPoint reports written and PowerPoint-style reports.