Neutrino Education, Outreach, and Communications Activities : Captivating Examples from IceCube

• Published in: Proceedings of 37th International Cosmic Ray Conference — PoS(ICRC2021)
• Main Authors: Abbasi, R., Botner, Olga, Burgman, Alexander, Glaser, Christian, Hallgren, Allan, O'Sullivan, Erin, Pérez de los Heros, Carlos, Sharma, Ankur, Valtonen-Mattila, Nora, Zhang, Z.
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: Uppsala universitet, Högenergifysik 2022
• Subjects: Subatomic Physics; Subatomär fysik; Astronomy; Astrophysics and Cosmology; Astronomi; astrofysik och kosmologi; Antarctic; The Antarctic; South Pole; Antarc*; South pole
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-518328; https://doi.org/10.22323/1.395.1382

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole has tremendous emotional appeal-the extreme Antarctic environment coupled with the aura of a pioneering experiment that explores the universe in a new way. However, as with most cutting-edge experiments, it is still challenging to translate the exotic, demanding science into accessible language. We present three examples of recent successful education, outreach, and communication activities that demonstrate how we leverage efforts and sustain connections to produce engaging results. First we describe our participation in the PolarTREC program, which pairs researchers with educators to provide deployments in the Antarctic, and how we have sustained relationships with these educators to produce high-quality experiences to reach target audiences even during a pandemic. We then focus on three activities from the past year: a summer enrichment program for high school students that was also modified for a 10-week IceCube after school program, a virtual visit to the South Pole for the ScienceWriters 2020 conference, and a series of short videos in English and Spanish suitable for all ages that explain traveling, living, and working at the South Pole. For complete list of authors see http://10.22323/1.395.1382