High School Outreach Programs
Our outreach programs for high schoolers cover a myriad of physics topics geared towards 9th - 12th graders.
Concepts Program
The Concepts Program has been part of the Carnegie Mellon University Physics Department since the late 1990s. The goals of the program are to teach scientific methods and concepts and to build self-confidence for high school students. The 9th-12th graders from Brashear High School attend lectures on physics concepts given by CMU faculty during the spring semester. During the fall semester, they work with university mentors and equipment as they carry out science fair projects. Each February, they present their projects at the Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science (PJAS) science fair.
Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Sciences (PGSS)
High school students must apply. High school students interested in an intensive summer program are encouraged to consider PGSS, a five-week session during which courses in biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, and computer science are taught. PGSS takes a special interest in promoting the involvement of underrepresented minorities in STEM fields and strongly encourages students from all backgrounds to apply.
Summer Academy for Math and Science (SAMS)
High school students must apply. High school sophomores and juniors from underrepresented communities will develop a deeper understanding in areas such as mathematics, biology, and physics at SAMS.
We offer the following talks on physics topics:
General Physics Concepts
Measuring Earth's Radius (Eratosthenes Method)
Format: Remote, Onsite at the school, or Onsite at CMU
Shadow angle is measured simultaneously at two different places (significantly far apart), where the distance between the two places is known (or is to be measured). Using this, and some simple geometry, Earth's radius can be measured quite accurately.
Contact: Omar El-Sayed
Physics of Sustainable Homes
Format: Remote
To live sustainably, in balance with nature, we must learn to combine high and low tech practices. Maintaining an energy balance in a home environment takes a knowledge of materials and physics. Discover phase change materials used in the walls of a home, which change state to extract energy as a cooling mechanism. Follow the flow of energy in a passive house with heat exchangers on air intake tubes and infrared radiation detectors to identify heat leaks. Use thermodynamics to cool rooms with geothermal earth tubes and heat water with the rays of the Sun. Beyond wind turbines and rooftop solar panels, learn about a wide array of scientific practices that can save money . . . and save the planet.
Contact: Diane Turnshek
Online Resources for Learning Physics
Format: Remote
Citizen Science uses community engagement to make new discoveries and classify objects in the Universe. The popular Zooniverse website shares tutorials and practice data sets before advancing trainees to real scientific data, ripe for discoveries. Look for supernovae in other galaxies, search for sun-diving comets, craters on planets and the Moon, and find near-Earth asteroids. Online physics classes are offered by august institutions, frequently for free. Remote telescope time can be had for a fee and includes training in observing procedures. Large libraries of physics simulations and labs are offered by universities, National Labs, and observatories. Free textbooks can be accessed through the OpenStax series. Planetarium programs and even educational space video games can teach about celestial objects. Armchair enthusiasts rejoice! The Universe is at your fingertips.
Contact: Diane Turnshek
Astronomy & Cosmology
What Happens When a Space Ship Develops an Air Leak?
Format: Onsite at CMU
In August of 2018 an air leak was discovered on the International Space Station. Early reports in the media (which turned out to be false) suggested that it might have resulted from a puncture by a micrometeoroid. A similar situation played out much more dramatically in the science fiction movie, "Mission To Mars". We'll watch the scene from "Mission to Mars" and use the kinetic theory of gases to estimate how much time the crew would have to find and patch the leak before the air escapes.
Contact: Barry Luokkala
The Physics of Climate Change
Format: Remote
The Earth is getting warmer at a rate higher than is sustainable. Either our practices or our lives will have to change. The solar system is our laboratory, displaying a prime example of the runaway greenhouse effect in our sister planet. Learn the basics of human-influenced climate disruption, then celebrate creative new ideas with the potential to change the change.
Contact: Diane Turnshek
Computer Simulations of the Universe - Are We Living in One?
Format: Remote or Onsite at your school
Hear a lecture from Prof. Rupert Croft on computer simulations of the universe - how does dark matter clump together, what happens when galaxies collide, and how did stars and planets come to be? After the lecture, students can download an app designed by CMU students that illustrates these simulations in real-time.
Contact: Rupert Croft
The Confluence of Astronomy and Genre Fiction
Format: Remote
Science fiction, fantasy and horror writers have always had a love affair with the night sky, but portraying it as it really appears takes going outside and looking up. Light pollution has obscured most of the stars from our view, but with free planetarium programs available now, authors can know what the phase of the Moon was on a particular date and when it rose, have characters tromp through a dark night during the peak of a meteor shower, catch an eclipse in the making and see what Earth looks like in the skies of Mars. Many astronomers also write fiction (Mike Brotherton, Alan Smale, Geoffrey Landis, Gregory Benford, David Brin, etc.), but you don't need to have a degree to set the night sky stage. For verisimilitude's sake, let's take the stars out of our eyes and put them back in the sky where they belong.
Contact: Diane Turnshek
Massive Black Holes in Galaxies
Format: Remote
Hear a lecture from Prof. Tiziana Di Matteo on the latest discoveries in massive black hole research.
Contact: Tiziana Di Matteo
Dark Skies in Our Future
Format: Remote
The night sky is getting brighter each year, obscuring the stars from our sight. Light pollution is the cause, the excessive, obtrusive light at night that prevents us from living under a sky bright with stars. Roughly 80% of the people in the US live in cities and can't see the Milky Way Galaxy. Artificial light at night adversely affects human health and the environment, can produce unsafe glare and raises our carbon footprint by wasting energy. Learn about the dark side of light and what steps can be taken to bring back the stars.
Contact: Diane Turnshek
Observations of the Early Universe
Format: Remote or Onsite at your school
Hear a lecture from Prof. Tina Kahniashvili on observations of the very early universe.
Contact: TINA KAHNIASHVILI
The Possibility of Life Elsewhere
Format: Remote
The hunt for life is on! Consider extreme life on Earth and what it can tell us about the possibility of other life in our Universe. Explore new information from probes sent to Mars and Venus. See how new technological developments, like the James Webb Telescope, will further our search for life on exoplanets. How would the news of life elsewhere change us?
Contact: Diane Turnshek
Cosmology with the Dark Energy Survey
Format: Remote or Onsite at your school
Hear a lecture from Prof. Scott Dodelson on the Dark Energy Survey.
Contact: scott dodelson
Eyes on the Universe
Format: Remote, Onsite at CMU or Onsite at your school
A presentation of astronomical images taken by the world's most powerful telescopes, with discussion of relevant astrophysical phenomena (supernova explosions, black holes, extra-solar planets, galaxy formation, etc.)
Contact: Matthew Walker
Biology & Physics
Introduction to the Very Small
Format: Remote or Onsite at CMU
This module will give an overview of how x-rays with a wavelength ~1 Angstrom are used to probe biological macromolecules. It will then focus specifically on how the Tristram-Nagle lab uses x-ray scattering to determine material properties, such as softness or rigidity of lipid membranes, as well as structure. Lipid membranes are important because they form the outer shell of all cells – plant and animal – although plants also have an additional outer shell called the cell wall. Dr. Tristram-Nagle will show examples of x-ray scattering patterns obtained at the CMU Physics Dept X-ray Facility, as well as at CHESS, the x-ray synchrotron facility located at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. The current work explores how lipid membranes are deformed when antimicrobial peptides (an alternative form of antibiotic) encounter them. These results have importance for understanding the molecular mechanism of the next generation of antibiotics which have been shown to be less capable of promoting bacterial resistance than traditional antibiotics.
Contact: Dr. Tristram-Nagle
Living Machines
Format: Remote
This module will aim to define what living machines are and introduce the application of mathematics and physics in understanding living things. Some interesting features of living matter systems (for example: color pattern on animal skin, camouflage, rabbit and fox population dynamics etc) will be discussed mainly using very simple dynamical systems descriptions. I hope to present a very brief description of some contemporary research works on living systems to foster interest in the highly interdisciplinary field of biological physics.
Contact: deb sankar banerjee
Physics of Living Systems
Format: Remote
Using basic principles of physics to explain how biological systems work.
Contact: Shiladitya Banerjee
Coding and Computational Physics
Introduction to Computational Physics
Format: Remote
I teach the undergraduate course on Introduction to Computational Physics. We program in Python using the Jupyter Notebook. Some of the numerical methods and physics examples can be modified to be more suitable for high school topics.
Contact: Hy Trac
Monte Carlo Simulation of Ising Model
Format: Remote, Onsite at your school, or Onsite at CMU
This is a python-based code that can simulate the 2D Ising model and display evolving structures and illustrate phase transitions.
Contact: Michael Widom
Particle & Nuclear Physics
Prof. John Alison and the AP Physics students at Penn Hills High School, December 17, 2021.
The Large Hadron Collider
Format: Remote or Onsite at your school
Prof. Paulini introduces the largest scientific instrument to date, the Large Hadron Collider, and how it is used to understand the world of elementary particles. He also explains to high school students how he searches for dark matter, uses modern machine learning and AI techniques and discusses how a scientist works in a collaboration of more than 2000 scientists.
Contact: MANFRED PAULINI
Physics Behind the Discovery of the Higgs Boson
Format: Remote or Onsite at your school
A series of hour-long lectures describing the physics behind the discovery of the Higgs Boson.
Contact: JOHN ALISON