Students visit hoist room, water plant, LUX

Thirteen students from a Chamberlain (S.D.) High School physics class spent Friday at the Sanford Underground Research Facility, where they got crash courses in water treatment, radiation and the search for dark matter?not to mention a little Cold War history.

Deputy Education and Outreach Director Peggy Norris arranged the visit with physics teacher John McEnelly, who had attended a professional development course that Norris taught.

?It was nice to have most of a day with one class, so we had time to do two separate activities,? Norris said. She divided the small group of students into two even smaller groups?five girls in one group and eight boys in the other.

One group did a radiation workshop with Norris. Then they visited the surface laboratory, where UC Davis graduate student Jeremy Mock explained the LUX dark-matter detector. The other group created their own small water filtration systems, under the direction of SURF education specialist Julie Dahl and SURF environmental consultant Jim Whitlock. Then they toured the water treatment plant.

At the Yates Shaft hoist room, the students watched a hoist operator lower the Yates Shaft service cage for the first time since the installation of the new rope-dog safety system?a milestone for SURF but not the most impressive sight for the kids. ?The thing that really impressed them was that the bomb shelter holds 760 people,? Norris said.

Bomb shelter? See today?s safety tip.

English teacher Amy Donovan, along  as a chaperone, thought the trip was a success. ?The employees here all seem so excited about their jobs, and they did a great job explaining everything,? she said.