The Contemporary Physics Education Project (CPEP) is an "organization of teachers, educators, and physicists"[1] formed in 1987. The group grew out of the Conference on the Teaching of Modern Physics held at Fermilab in 1986, organized by the American Association of Physics Teachers.[2] The group's first effort aimed to supply a chart for particle physics teaching that would rival the Periodic Table of the elements. The first version of this chart was published in 1989.[3]
CPEP has created five charts emphasizing contemporary aspects of physics research: particles and interactions; fusion and plasma physics; nuclear science; and cosmology; and gravity.. Almost half a million of these charts and similar products have been distributed.
The group has created website support for teaching for each of the charts.[1]
CPEP received the 2017 "Excellence in Physics Education Award" from the American Physical Society, "for leadership in providing educational materials on contemporary physics topics to students for over 25 years."[1]
Offshoots of CPEP include the book, "The Charm of Strange Quarks: Mysteries and Revolutions of Particle Physics" (2000), by R. Michael Barnett, Henry Muehry, and Helen R. Quinn, three of the founders of CPEP.[4] See also the web site "The Particle Adventure: The Fundamentals of Matter and Force".[5]
R. Michael Barnett described the formation and early days of CPEP in a Nobel Symposium Lecture in 2002.