The Cosmic Ray Observatory Project (CROP) is a statewide education and research experiment involving Nebraska high school students, teachers and university undergraduates in the study of extensive cosmic-ray air showers. A network of high school team
s construct, install, and operate school-based detectors in coordination with University of Nebraska physics professors and graduate students. The detector system at each school is an array of scintillation counters recycled from the Chicago Air Shower Array in weather-proof enclosures on the school roof, with a GPS receiver providing a time stamp for cosmic-ray events. The detectors are connected to triggering electronics and a data-acquisition PC inside the building. Students share data via the Internet to search for time coincidences with other sites. Funded by the National Science Foundation, CROP has enlisted 29 schools with the aim of expanding to the 314 high schools in the state over several years. This report highlights both the scientific and professional development achievements of the project to date.
The scale and scope of the physics studied at the Auger Observatory offer significant opportunities for original outreach work. Education, outreach, and public relations of the Auger collaboration are coordinated in a task of its own whose goals are
to encourage and support a wide range of efforts that link schools and the public with the Auger scientists and the science of cosmic rays, particle physics, and associated technologies. This report focuses on the impact of the collaboration in Mendoza Province, Argentina, as: the Auger Visitor Center in Malargue that has hosted over 29,000 visitors since 2001, the Auger Celebration and a collaboration-sponsored science fair held on the Observatory campus in November 2005, the opening of the James Cronin School in Malargue in November 2006, public lectures, school visits, and courses for science teachers. As the collaboration prepares the proposal for the northern Auger site foreseen to be in southeast Colorado, plans for a comprehensive outreach program are being developed in parallel, as described here.
