The (N)ALTA Project: A New Partnership in Education and Research in the Area of Cosmic Ray Physics

A brief introduction to the origin and detection of cosmic rays will be given. The Alberta Large Time Coincidence Array (ALTA) will then be described along with the potential physics case for such detector systems. The partnership between education at the highschool college and University level and fundamental research that the ALTA project has initiated will be discussed. Last but not least a sketch of the envisaged expansion of the ALTA project across North America -- the NALTA project (North American Large Time Coincidence Array) -- will be presented.