We had a great meeting Saturday with lots of discussion.
First, some dates: We will be meeting on Feb. 14th, March 7th, and April 11th, and our end of the year party will be on May 9th. One of the meeting programs will consist of 10-minute presentations from group members, so start thinking of something you might want to share on the topic of light, waves optics and sound - basically second-semester topics. We are juggling speakers for the remaining dates, to be announced. Some future topics that we are still exploring: for adjunct instructors and teachers not trained in physics, what is the least amount of training needed to be an effective physics teacher? Also, organizing groups and group dynamics.
We had a few great toys and gadgets and presentations. Rob Purington showed some great mousetrap cars that his students made from scratch. He talked about the applications of physics principles that the students learn from building the cars. Alison Lemons also mention a project she assigns that is similar but with a different application of applied force: use a mousetrap to move a brick. She will bring one of the devices to a future meeting.
Lynne Gillette presented some of the ideas that she learned at the recent AAPT meeting. Her summary is here, along with links for many of the resources. She also mentioned the AAPT e-mentoring program, available to all new physics teachers. A link is on her handout.
Glen Linton, from Ironwood Ridge, showed an adjustable ball-bearing shooter for teaching about trajectories and vectors. And he brought biscuits and gravy!
Chris Ubing showed a lab device that he received from the Mats Selen of the smartPhysics group. It looks like a cart, but contains all the sensors that people would like to use in lab. Here are some links that Chris sent:
The first is a link to the software used with the devices.
http://www.labframe.org
Depending on your os, the download should be pretty straight forward. Second, there are some applications can be seen via you tube. Here is the link to the you tube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/
Third is a link to SmartPhysics. The Smart physics site also has tutorials on how to use the device. Here is a link to the site, but you may have to set up an account to gain access. https://www.smartphysics.com/
Fritz brought four great-looking books with very deep titles:
Our Mathematical Universe, about cosmology, by Max Tegemark
The Science of Interstellar, by Kip Thorne
The Meaning of Existence, by E.O. Wilson
The Wastewater Gardener, by Mark Nelson
I showed my partially finished underwater vehicle based on the Arduino chip.
The best toy was a helium filled, steerable Angry Bird, which Alison Lemons bought on Amazon. A motor moves along the bottom and shifts weight to steer the bird. The video is here.
Lynne also mentioned a knob that is available from Vernier that fits onto a cart and causes it to stop at the end of the track instead of rolling off the end. It’s free; just call Vernier to order.
From DaNel Hogan, some information from last meeting which I neglected to forward last time. Here is some information about wave simulators, which we were discussing in our December meeting.
The Physics Classroom has lots of great interactives including some for standing waves.
http://www.physicsclassroom.
PhET’s newest Html5 simulator has some potential with the Wave on a String.
http://phet.colorado.edu/sims/
A good collection of lots of different applets for wave physics.
http://www.cabrillo.edu/~
I am also linking to an EM lab that includes a homopolar motor, also from DaNel. Link here.
And finally, from DaNel, here is the website for Community Share:http://www.communityshare.us/ Folks who are in the K-12 classroom should register as users and folks who are retired or in high education should register as a community partner.
First, some dates: We will be meeting on Feb. 14th, March 7th, and April 11th, and our end of the year party will be on May 9th. One of the meeting programs will consist of 10-minute presentations from group members, so start thinking of something you might want to share on the topic of light, waves optics and sound - basically second-semester topics. We are juggling speakers for the remaining dates, to be announced. Some future topics that we are still exploring: for adjunct instructors and teachers not trained in physics, what is the least amount of training needed to be an effective physics teacher? Also, organizing groups and group dynamics.
We had a few great toys and gadgets and presentations. Rob Purington showed some great mousetrap cars that his students made from scratch. He talked about the applications of physics principles that the students learn from building the cars. Alison Lemons also mention a project she assigns that is similar but with a different application of applied force: use a mousetrap to move a brick. She will bring one of the devices to a future meeting.
Lynne Gillette presented some of the ideas that she learned at the recent AAPT meeting. Her summary is here, along with links for many of the resources. She also mentioned the AAPT e-mentoring program, available to all new physics teachers. A link is on her handout.
Glen Linton, from Ironwood Ridge, showed an adjustable ball-bearing shooter for teaching about trajectories and vectors. And he brought biscuits and gravy!
Chris Ubing showed a lab device that he received from the Mats Selen of the smartPhysics group. It looks like a cart, but contains all the sensors that people would like to use in lab. Here are some links that Chris sent:
The first is a link to the software used with the devices.
http://www.labframe.org
Depending on your os, the download should be pretty straight forward. Second, there are some applications can be seen via you tube. Here is the link to the you tube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/
Third is a link to SmartPhysics. The Smart physics site also has tutorials on how to use the device. Here is a link to the site, but you may have to set up an account to gain access. https://www.smartphysics.com/
Fritz brought four great-looking books with very deep titles:
Our Mathematical Universe, about cosmology, by Max Tegemark
The Science of Interstellar, by Kip Thorne
The Meaning of Existence, by E.O. Wilson
The Wastewater Gardener, by Mark Nelson
I showed my partially finished underwater vehicle based on the Arduino chip.
The best toy was a helium filled, steerable Angry Bird, which Alison Lemons bought on Amazon. A motor moves along the bottom and shifts weight to steer the bird. The video is here.
Lynne also mentioned a knob that is available from Vernier that fits onto a cart and causes it to stop at the end of the track instead of rolling off the end. It’s free; just call Vernier to order.
From DaNel Hogan, some information from last meeting which I neglected to forward last time. Here is some information about wave simulators, which we were discussing in our December meeting.
The Physics Classroom has lots of great interactives including some for standing waves.
http://www.physicsclassroom.
PhET’s newest Html5 simulator has some potential with the Wave on a String.
http://phet.colorado.edu/sims/
A good collection of lots of different applets for wave physics.
http://www.cabrillo.edu/~
I am also linking to an EM lab that includes a homopolar motor, also from DaNel. Link here.
And finally, from DaNel, here is the website for Community Share:http://www.communityshare.us/ Folks who are in the K-12 classroom should register as users and folks who are retired or in high education should register as a community partner.
I'll give more details about future meetings in the next email.
Thanks to everyone who contributed.
Karie
