Outreach Cosmic Ray Activities (OCRA): a program of Astroparticle Physics Outreach Events for High-School Students

Abstract

Among the many outreach activities organized by the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), OCRA (Outreach Cosmic Ray Activities) includes those related to astroparticle physics, with particular emphasis on cosmic rays. In particular, OCRA coordinates all the fourteen INFN Sections that participated in the 2018 edition of the International Cosmic Day, an astroparticle physics outreach event for high-school students from all over the world. In addition to the standard ICD program, a competition was launched for the 800 students participating in the ICD at INFN throughout Italy whose thirty winners participated in a three-day science camp at the Gran Sasso National Laboratories (LNGS) in April where they were involved in the measurement of the cosmic ray flux as a function of the atmospheric depth and zenith angle using a detector made by 4 scintillator layers and read out by SiPMs (Silicon Photomultipliers), the Cosmic Ray Cube. Some details on the science camp, as well as the ICD 2018 summary and other local activities coordinated by OCRA will be reported.