Atomic Girls isan initiative of the Saphir Millennium Institute that aims to encourage girls in grades 9–10 to develop an interest in science and prepare them for their first years of undergraduate study in science-related fields.
Cosmic radiation from deep space regularly strikes Earth’s atmosphere, and this interaction generates a constant “shower” of muons—subatomic particles that pass through all kinds of objects (including steel and other solid materials). It is estimated that, at sea level, approximately10,000 muons per minute per square meterreach the Earth. Usingsmall, simple devices, 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 interiors of the pyramids of Egypt and the Fukushima nuclear reactorsin Japan.
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.
