Workshops

When he served as AAPT Staff Physicist in 1975-77, Dean Zollman, a persuasive advocate of the workshop as a means of introducing new discoveries and approaches in the physics classroom, was instrumental in the development of the workshop program that has become an important feature of the Summer and Winter Meetings. This program has seen dramatic growth in the past decade. Two types of workshops are offered: AAPT workshops, conducted by AAPT members and sponsored by one of the Area Committees, and commercial workshops, conducted by equipment suppliers for promotion of their products. At the 1977 Winter Meeting, there were 3 AAPT workshops and 8 commercial workshops. At the 1995 Summer Meeting there were 47 AAPT workshops and 8 commercial workshops. The 1998 Winter Meeting included 26 AAPT workshops and 16 commercial workshops.

Usually there is a modest fee for participation in AAPT workshops but no fee for commercial workshops. For all AAPT workshops, advance registration is required and the number of participants is limited. Some workshops have been oversubscribed to such an extent that they have been repeated at succeeding Winter and/or Summer Meetings.

AAPT workshops are usually scheduled for the two days immediately preceding or the two days following a Winter or Summer Meeting so that they do not conflict with the meeting program, while commercial workshops are offered during the meetings.

Offerings of the workshops have expanded beyond the Summer and Winter Meetings to include section meetings, National Science Teacher Association meetings, international meetings (France, Hungary, Germany, Austria, Thailand, Taiwan, Mexico, Canada, and possibly Japan and China) and many meetings of other science and science education organizations.