This award supports the continuation of QuarkNet, a program which provides valuable research experience to teachers enabling them to teach the basic concepts of introductory physics in a context that students find exciting. QuarkNet has created an ongoing national community of researchers that include high school teachers and students as well as physicists. QuarkNet's goals are to maintain and enhance this community, to attract young students to careers in science and technology, to help develop scientific literacy in society, and to develop links between the high school classroom and experiments and techniques used to explore the scientific frontier. Key features of QuarkNet are the establishment of mentor relationships between teachers and scientists, summer research experiences of up to eight weeks for teachers and students, and the development of a scientific and learning community within and among centers. QuarkNet provides opportunities for teachers to become more professional, resulting in the development of programming for peers in the center, in their schools and districts and beyond. QuarkNet provides a centrally hosted, scalable, parallel cyberlearning environment as a cloud-like service. Held at university and laboratory centers, Masterclasses are institutes for teams of students who become physicists for a day, analyzing real experimental data and discussing results in videoconferences with peers and physicists. This award is cofunded by the Education and Interdisciplinary Research program, the Elementary Particle Physics program, the Theory program, and the Particle Astrophysics program, all within the Physics Division; and the DRK-12 program and the Math and Science Partnership program within the Division of Undergraduate research, and the ITEST program within the Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL) Division, in the Education and Human Resources Directorate.
