Students

This page highlights the resources that are of special interest to students!

LIGO Academic Advisory Council

The LAAC provides information and resources related to the educational mission of LIGO.

Scienceface.org

Learn more about black holes and the scientists that study them. Scientists from around the world are interviewed by a young musician.

Activities

Play the Black Hole Hunter Game

Can you hear the gravitational wave signal of two black holes colliding? (Cardiff University, Universities of Birmingham, Glasgow and Southampton in the UK in collaboration with the Albert Einstein Institute and Milde Marketing in Germany)

Play the Space Time Quest Game

You are the principal investigator (PI) of an interferometric gravitational wave observatory like LIGO. You select the location for your detector and design it to fit within the budget for your project. At the end of the game, you turn on your detector and look for gravitational waves. The deeper into space you can detect gravitational waves, the higher your score (and you can compare your score against others' high scores). (gwoptics group at the University of Birmingham, UK)

Play the Black Hole Pong Game

This is a new take on the classic game "Pong" except instead of paddles, you use black holes to gravitationally move and sling a mass into your opponent's half of the screen. Every time the mass enters your opponent's space, you score a point. This is currently a 2 player only game (you can't play against the computer yet) and you can even use your Xbox controllers! (gwoptics group at the University of Birmingham, UK)

Play the Slingshot Game

The goal of this strategy game is to shoot your opponent's spacecraft on the opposite side of the screen. However, there are planets in between that attract your projectile gravitationally (they warp space-time) deflecting it from a straight path (the game name of Slingshot refers to the fact that stars, planets and moons can be used as a gravitational slingshot to speed up spacecrafts or other masses - NASA used this to get the astronauts from Apollo 13 back to Earth when they were low on fuel). The strategy is to account for these deflections and still destroy your opponent's spacecraft. This 2 player game can be very addictive! (RIT Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation)

Operate LIGO

Take the controls of a virtual gravitational wave interferometer. (American Museum of Natural History)

An Interactive Virtual Tour of LIGO

An up-close view of LIGO's facilities (American Museum of Natural History)


Coloring Pages, etc.

The "Other Physics Resources" page has a collection of activities that are interest, including an interview of a prominent gravitational wave scientist (Dr. Kip Thorne) by kids!


Research Experiences for Undergraduate Students

Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU)
The LIGO Laboratory offers REU summer internships at Caltech and at the Hanford and Livingston Observatories.

UF International REU program
The University of Florida offers REU internships at gravitational wave research centers around the world.


Research Experiences for High School Students

Sumer Ambassadors Academy
High School students who have completed their freshman, sophomore or junior year and live in the Cameron County, TX area can explore modern scientific research in astronomy, computer science or mathematics.