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Agenda Preview

Plenaries

• 2016 Homer L. Dodge Citation for Distinguished Service to AAPT

  • • 2016 Homer L. Dodge Citation for Distinguished Service to AAPT

    • PL04B
    • Tue 01/12, 10:30AM - 12:00PM
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    • Type: Plenary
    • Michael Faleski. Marina Milner-Bolotin, Karl Mamola, Gay Stewart, and David Weaver

• AAPT Symposium on Physics Education and Public Policy

  • • AAPT Symposium on Physics Education and Public Policy

    • PL05
    • Tue 01/12, 2:00PM - 3:30PM
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    • Type: Plenary
    • Policymakers formulate decisions everyday that impact curriculum, standards, funding, and many other aspects of physics education at all levels. AAPT works with a number of partners to keep policymakers informed on the views of physics educators and to suggest appropriate policy options within the Association’s sphere of influence. This session brings together individuals who play pivotal roles in helping to shape policies and who provide information to policymakers. We hope to provide a look at the process of policy making as well as actions you might make to contribute to decisions about policies affecting physics and STEM education. Speakers: Ramon Barthelemy - APS-AIP STEM Education Department Fellow and Meredith Drosback - Assistant Director, Education and Physical Sciences, Science Division, Office of Science and Technology Policy, U.S. White House

• AIP Science Writer Awards

  • • AIP Science Writer Awards

    • PLC04D
    • Tue 01/12, 10:30AM - 12:00PM
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    • Type: Plenary
    • The American Institute of Physics (AIP) has named three winners for this year’s AIP Science Writing Awards in the Writing for Children category for fun works on the science behind a famous superhero and the solution to a kids' mystery: Agnieszka Biskup and Tammy Enz will receive the prize for Batman Science: The Real-world Science Behind Batman’s Gear, published by Capstone Young Readers; and Dia L. Michels, who led a team of writers, will receive the prize for Ghost in the Water, published by Science, Naturally.

• Derek Muller, Veritasium: 2016 Richtmyer Memorial Lecture Award

  • • Derek Muller, Veritasium: 2016 Richtmyer Memorial Lecture Award

    • PL02
    • Mon 01/11, 9:30AM - 11:00AM
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    • Type: Plenary
    • Why Some Confusion is Good - Evidence for how to Make Learners Think - Every physics teacher wants engaged, active learners, but how do you get them engaged? Video content, now more widely available than ever, appears only to perpetuate the transmissionist model of education. I researched how changing the content of a video affects can change how learners view it. I found that direct expository summaries were least helpful for novices, despite the fact learners enjoyed and felt they learned from them. What was more effective were videos involving alternative conceptions, which viewers perceived as more confusing but from which they learned much more. Now I apply these insights to create online videos for a mass audience. I think the lessons I've learned apply not only to educational video but to all teaching and learning environments.

• Dr. Benjamin D. Santer, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • • Dr. Benjamin D. Santer, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

    • PL01
    • Sun 01/10, 7:30PM - 8:30PM
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    • Type: Plenary
    • Evidence for Human Effects on Global Climate: My talk covers information provided to an American Physical Society subcommittee charged with updating the APS’s position statement on climate change. The first part shows that satellite data and the model-predicted response to human influence have a common latitude/altitude pattern of atmospheric temperature change. Key features of this pattern are global-scale tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling. Current climate models are unlikely to produce this distinctive signal pattern by internal variability alone, or in response to naturally forced changes in solar output and volcanic aerosol loadings. Despite continuing increases in atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases, global-mean temperatures have showed relatively little warming since 1998. This so-called “hiatus” has received considerable attention. The second part of my talk examines the contribution of early 21st century volcanic activity to the “hiatus” in global warming. Neglect of these eruptions in climate model simulations partly explains why current climate models overestimate the muted warming observed since 1998.

• Dr. Kimberly Ennico, NASA’s Ames Research Center

  • • Dr. Kimberly Ennico, NASA’s Ames Research Center

    • PL03
    • Mon 01/11, 2:00PM - 3:00PM
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    • Type: Plenary
    • Pluto Revealed: First Results From The Historic 1st Fly-By Space Mission: On July 14, 2015, after a 9.5 year trek across the solar system, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft successfully flew by the dwarf planet Pluto and its system of moons, taking imagery, spectra and in-situ particle data. In this internet-information age, this historic first fly-by was shared across planet Earth, everyone witnessing first-hand the transformation of distant point of lights into real worlds. The New Horizons’ dataset has become an invaluable first glimpse into the outer Third Zone of the Solar System. Pluto has revealed itself to be a complex, beautiful place, with a variety of geophysical and surface-atmosphere interactions. Charon has been unmasked; its surface features implying a complicated, enigmatic history. The smaller moons, origins still unknown, are uniquely different in their own right. This presentation summarizes NASA’s New Horizons mission and its early science results, and touches on the future of further exploring the outer Third Zone.

• John W. Belcher, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT): 2016 Hans Christian Oersted Medal

  • • John W. Belcher, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT): 2016 Hans Christian Oersted Medal

    • PL04
    • Tue 01/12, 10:30AM - 12:00PM
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    • Type: Plenary
    • The Challenges of Pedagogical Change at a Research I University - TEAL (Technology Enabled Active Learning) is an active engagement format for teaching introductory physics in the main-stream introductory physics courses at MIT. The model is based on Professor Robert Beichner’s SCALE-UP pedagogy developed at North Carolina State University. The implementation of this format at MIT, beginning on a large scale in spring 2003, was not without controversy. The often-times turbulent history of the TEAL program has been described by Dr. Lori Breslow of MIT in an article in Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, “Wrestling with Pedagogical Change: The TEAL Initiative at MIT” (42(5), 23-29, 2010). I will recount some of that history in this talk. I will also review the visualization efforts in electromagnetism that constitute the innovative contribution of TEAL.

• Outstanding SPS Chapter Award

  • • Outstanding SPS Chapter Award

    • PL02B
    • Mon 01/11, 9:30AM - 11:00AM
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    • Type: Plenary
    • The Outstanding SPS Chapter Advisor Award is the most prestigious SPS award. It recognizes annually an outstanding SPS chapter advisor. A truly successful SPS chapter requires leadership, organization, a broad spectrum of activities, and enthusiastic student participation. An outstanding chapter advisor provides the stimulus for such success. This year's awardee is Dr. Kiril Streletzky, Associate Professor of Physics at Cleveland State University.

• Presidential Transfer

  • • Presidential Transfer

    • PL04C
    • Tue 01/12, 10:30AM - 12:00PM
    • 
      
    • Type: Plenary

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