Another basic unit of matter, it's now believed, is the lepton, a point-like particle with no internal structure, the best-known example being the electron. The first was the theory that protons and neutrons, the subatomic particles once thought to be the basic units of the atom's nucleus, are themselves composed of still more fundamental particles, known as quarks. The body of theory known as the Standard Model, which emerged in its current form in the early 1970s, is a combination of two major developments in particle physics.

'There's really a lack of materials provided by the state for teaching the Standard Model.'Materials developed in the workshop will be made available to teachers across the state via the Web. 'What I heard from teachers was that they were very ill-prepared to teach the Standard Model,' said Lora Hine, educational outreach coordinator for LEPP and an organizer of the workshop. Cornell physicists and graduate students were on hand to advise the teachers on making the abstract realm of particle physics accessible. Recently high school physics teachers convened at Cornell for a workshop in which teachers spent a week developing laboratory exercises for their students on the Standard Model as well as on planetary science and the concept of scale. To bridge this knowledge gap, particle physicists and space scientists at Cornell are working with New York state physics teachers to develop laboratory exercises and other curriculum materials on the Standard Model. 'Odds are that the vast majority of high school physics teachers probably don't know much about it.' 'It's quite possible that even if they were physics majors, teachers may have never seen it before,' says Ahren Sadoff, research professor at Cornell's Laboratory for Elementary Particle Physics (LEPP).

While the curriculum still includes plenty of classical Newtonian physics, like the laws of motion and gravity, it also includes the Standard Model: a difficult theory about the fundamental particles in nature and how they interact. In the spring of 2001, as part of statewide public school reforms in math, science and technology education, New York state introduced a new core curriculum and a standardized Regents examination in physics. But before they can introduce their students to the new material, high school teachers across the state must get a grasp on it themselves – with help from Cornell University. Move over Sir Isaac Newton and make way for quarks and leptons.Ī theory that has been part of the physics canon for more than 30 years is now making its way into New York state's high school science classrooms.

Quest Theater by Lora Gray