TRIUMF is building on its successful undergraduate and graduate student programs by launching TOP, the TRIUMF Outreach Project. TOP will introduce the physics laboratory experience to secondary school classrooms in a number of ways.
An internship program for secondary school teachers will allow teachers to participate in a running experiment at TRIUMF. Resource materials, including a dedicated website, will assist teachers to show their students how what they learn in the classroom relates to real academic research. TRIUMF will also host the annual Professional Development Day administered by the BC Association of Physics Teachers. One hundred teachers come to TRIUMF for a day long experience that includes lectures, hands-on physics experiment demonstrations and tours.
TOP is also joining the NALTA Cosmic Ray Project where safe, easy-to-use cosmic ray detectors are placed at participating secondary schools. Teachers and students will operate and maintain the detectors as part of their school's career preparation, science programs and information technology programs.
These and other TOP initiatives were made possible by generous grants from The Vancouver Foundation and the TRIUMF Technology Transfer Office.