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W13: Introductory Laboratories
Sponsor: Committee on Laboratories
Time: 1–5 p.m. Saturday
Member Price: $70
Non-Member Price: $95
Location: Tate 130
Mary Ann Klassen, Dept. of Physics & Astronomy, Swarthmore College, 500
College Ave., Swarthmore PA 19081;
Whether your lab curriculum is ripe for an overhaul or well-established,
this workshop will provide new ideas to bring home to your institution.
Six presenters from colleges and universities across the United States will
each demonstrate their approach to a favorite introductory lab exercise. At-
tendees will have the opportunity to work with each apparatus. Documen-
tation will be provided for each experiment, with lab manuals, sample data,
equipment lists, and construction or purchase information. This workshop
is appropriate primarily for college and university instructional laboratory
developers.
W14: Afternoon Tour of the Bakken Museum
Sponsor: Committee on History and Philosophy in Physics
Time: 1–5 p.m. Saturday
Member Price: $10
Non-Member Price: $10
Location: offsite
Shawn Reeves;
David Rhees
Explore the connections between history, science, and engineering at this
beautiful mansion and gardens. The Bakken houses the world’s leading col-
lection of books and artifacts on the history of electricity in life. A bus will
take us to the site on Lake Calhoun.
W15: Activity-based Physics for the Advanced H.S.
Classroom
Sponsor: Committee on Physics in High Schools
Time: 1–5 p.m. Saturday
Member Price: $68
Non-Member Price: $93
Location: Tate 225
Maxine Willis, Dickinson College, Department of Physics and Astronomy,
Carlisle, PA 17013;
Priscilla W. Laws, Steve Henning
This hands-on work shop is designed for teachers in advanced physics
classes (such as AP, International Baccalaureate and honors physics) who
want to help students master concepts in mechanics through inquiry-based
active learning. Participants will work with classroom-tested curricular
materials drawn from the Activity Based Physics Suite (
.
dickinson.edu/~abp_web/abp_homepage.html). These Suite materials,
based on the outcomes of physics education research, enable students to
learn physics by collecting and analyzing data using flexible computer tools
available from either Vernier or PASCO. Affordable access to the Suite
materials for secondary school use is now available and will be discussed.
W16: Tinkering and Explorations in Science – Integrating
Sensors and Data Acquisition with Arduino
Sponsor: Committee on Educational Technologies
Co-sponsor: Committee on Apparatus
Time: 1–5 p.m. Saturday
Member Price: $110
Non-Member Price: $135
Location:
Tate 140
Brian Huang, 6175 Longbow Drive, Boulder, CO 80301; brian.huang@
sparkfun.com
At SparkFun, our focus is to excite the greater community to “tinker”
and play with electronics. We strive to push the envelope for integrating
electronics, technology, and programming into all populations. Using the
simplicity and power of the open-source community, we will model several
tools and hands-on demonstrations of physics experiments in the Arduino
environment. One of the pillars of STEM education is to build, create,
and invent. The Arduino platform is built around this idea and is easier
than you think! We will explore areas of motion, forces, sound, and light
with this low-cost microcontroller platform. We will also brainstorm ideas
around teaching circuits, capacitance, and computer architecture through
a variety of projects. Bring a laptop if you have one. We will have a limited
number of laptops and hardware to give away.
W17: Energy in the 21st Century
Sponsor: Committee on Space Science and Astronomy
Co-sponsor: Committee on Physics in Two-Year Colleges
Time: 1–5 p.m. Saturday
Member Price: $80
Non-Member Price: $105
Location: STSS 117
Pat Keefe, Clatsop Community College, 1651 Lexington Ave., Astoria OR
97103;
Greg Mulder
We have found that engaging students in predictions of what form and
how much energy will be used in the future is a very successful way to
generate enthusiasm and further investigation of physics. Participants of
this workshop will be introduced by way of experience to two different
group projects that involve designing energy systems. These modeling
exercises look at past energy consumption patterns and develop a plan for
energy usage in the 21st Century. Other considerations such as population,
costs and efficiencies are also used to further expand the discussion and
decision-making that takes place.
W18: Tips for Putting Fire into Your Teaching
Sponsor: Committee on International Physics Education
Co-sponsor: Committee on Diversity in Physics
Time: 1–5 p.m. Saturday
Member Price: $60
Non-Member Price: $85
Location: STSS 131B
Michael Ponnambalam, 7-40 Sannathi St., Vadakkankulam Tirunelvely Dis-
trict, Tamil Nadu 627 116, INDIA;
The laws of physics are objective, and hence may seem cold and imperson-
al. However, their presentation is subjective. Hence, the communication of
physics can vary from a “very boring” to a “very exciting” level, depending
upon the skills of the presenter. Using dramatization, story-telling and a
burning passion for physics, the presenter of this workshop has success-
fully communicated the beauty, the poetry, the wonder and the excite-
ment of physics to numerous students in primary schools, high schools
and universities, and has won awards for this. During this workshop, the
participants will be given the opportunity to learn—and practice in small
groups—the expert communication skills that will fill their teaching ses-
sions with infectious enthusiasm and explosive energy. Further, they will
learn—and practice in small groups—the details of the “holistic approach”
which will raise their teaching to a “higher level.”
W19: Skepticism in the Classroom
Sponsor: Committee on Physics in High Schools
Time: 1–5 p.m. Saturday
Member Price: $60
Non-Member Price: $85
Location:
STSS 432A
Dean Baird, Rio Americano High School, 4540 American River Drive, Sacra-
mento, CA 95864-6199;
Matt Lowry, College of Lake County, Lake Forest, IL
We will present a variety of lessons, appropriate for the physics classroom,
that focus on the skeptical and critical thinking nature of science. Some les-
sons involve obvious physics content; some bring in examples from the real
world. Participants will leave with ready-to-use lessons and resources de-
signed to bring healthy, scientific skepticism to their classrooms—lessons
that slip into content-based physics instruction without disruption. Topics
include fire walking, ghosts and angels, balance bracelets, pareidolia, back
masking, media credulity, and more.
Canceled
