HiSPARC is a project that helps high schools to build, install and operate cosmic ray detectors, in cooperation with nearby universities. It originated in the Netherlands, but there are now several UK universities supporting the project, including Bristol and Birmingham.
The students taking part in the project have the opportunity to analyse real scientific data, both from their own detectors and data from all the other schools taking part in the project, because it is all pooled in a central database, and accessible to all project participants.
My role is merely to mentor students at two Stroud schools. Marling School have constructed a detector which is no operational. Stroud High School (next door) are currently running a project looking at cosmic rays that will involve some data analysis. Who knows - the girls at SHS may decide to construct their own detector, which would indeed be scientifically valuable, because two detector stations relatively close together are then capable of capturing additional information about the direction from with cosmic rays are arriving. The more detectors within a relatively small area the better!
Partly, I admit, this is a good excuse to revisit my own interests in astrophysics. (I did a PhD in radio astronomy, which consisted largely of looking at objects that could be sources of the cosmic rays we detect on the Earth.) The purpose of this page is to collect together pointers to sources of useful information that I uncover, and to host a few "background science" documents that I drafted to address questions raised by the students.
I have a page of resources relevant to this project here.