CREDO-Maze Project: after-school activities in contemporary physics for talented high school students

We propose to create the global network of small, cheap and simple school Extensive Air Shower mini-arrays. The data registered in each school will be sen t to a local database of the city/ region supervised by the nearby universities or research institutes. Each student could use them to create their own (or the student science club) scientific research program, in consultation with scientists. Local databases will be parts of the central CREDO (Cosmic Ray Extremely Distributed Observatory) database system collecting all registration. They could be used, certainly, by each individual student, but also for " professional " research on cosmic rays, searching for sources, determining parameters of particles with the highest energies, but also for searching for the new physic. Our school array network, and particularly the portable single particle detector modules can help teachers to teach elements of modern physics and to extend standard physics curricula. Additionally, they will provide the set of themes for gifted students, for science clubs, to create a student science project for science fairs , and other similar events. Currently, high school students test a prototype version of the station at the University. They perform measurements on their own, albeit under expert supervision, which will eventually form a part of a set of issues we are preparing to help teachers, gifted students, and science club s create individual student projects for science fairs and other similar events.