Muon Detection in a Cave: Experiential Learning and Cross-Disciplinary Exploration

In 2024 Raccoon Mountain Caverns was donated to the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga to be used as a multi-disciplinary classroom and research laboratory. This semester, students from an upper-level undergraduate experimental physics course took a series of measurements inside the cave system with a muon detector that is normally reserved for a teaching lab. The students measured the muon flux at various locations inside the cave and compared it to the expected results based on the underground depth. We will give an overview of the entire project, discuss the opportunities for experiential learning and interdisciplinary research with colleagues outside our department, and propose refinements of the experimental setup and future research topics to investigate in the cave.