Meeting This Saturday

TAPT-ers and Friends,

Here’s a reminder about our meeting Saturday, October 3^rd. We’ll meet at 8:30 am in room PAS 218 on the U of A Campus. New and old members welcome, as well as a guest you think might be interested in the topic.

The PAS building is on 4^th Street between Park and Highland. ONLY THE WEST DOOR TO THE BUILDING WILL BE OPEN.  A parking map is here: Parking map. I usually suggest parking at the 6^th Street garage, off 5^th Street,  or the Tyndall Garage, off Euclid. Both are a quick walk to PAS.

The U of Arizona Physics Department will supply breakfast, and it’s always delicious. Thanks Physics Dept!

Our speaker is Dr. Brad Story from the Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences.  Here is his abstract:

Spoken communication relies on humans’ ability to generate sound waves with precise, complex structure that encodes the vowels and consonants of a language. The human sound production system utilizes vibratory and turbulent sound sources to initiate pressure waves that propagate through the vocal tract, which are the airspaces of the trachea, pharynx, mouth, and nasal passages. This talk will give overview of how the vibratory characteristics of the vocal folds,and the acoustic filtering properties of the vocal tract interact to produce the sounds of speech.

I’m sure it will be a great talk – it sounds super interesting. Please join us for our kick-off meeting.

If you have any questions, please email. Hope to see a lot of people there.

Karie

Upcoming Events and Meetings

TAPT,

Please read all the way to the end - the last item is information about the Tucson Pumpkin Toss! It’s a great activity for your class or club.

J.D. has arranged for another great speaker for our meeting on October 3rd. Brad Story is a Professor in Speech Language and Hearing Sciences, and Associate Head of the Department. Our meeting is Saturday, October 3rd, in room PAS 218 on the University of Arizona Campus. I will send a campus map in a future email. We meet at 8:30 am, and our talk will start about 9:00. The University Physics Department will supply a delicious breakfast. Here is an abstract of Dr. Story’s talk:

Spoken communication relies on humans’ ability to generate sound waves with precise, complex structure that encodes the vowels and consonants of a language. The human sound production system utilizes vibratory and turbulent sound sources to initiate pressure waves that propagate through the vocal tract, which are the airspaces of the trachea, pharynx, mouth, and nasal passages. This talk will give overview of how the vibratory characteristics of the vocal folds, and the acoustic filtering properties of the vocal tract interact to produce the sounds of speech.

I  hope you will be able to join us! 

One more date that I didn’t mention in my last email: There is a 4-corners meeting of the APS in Phoenix on October 16th-17th. There will be a lot of presenters from the four-corners area, including Kelli Gamez-Warble, teacher-in-residence for the ASU physics teacher training program, and Noah Finkelstein, University of Colorado researcher who is very well-known for his work on physics education. We are hoping that Kelli will be teaching a Modeling workshop here in Tucson next summer. Here is some information from Jane Jackson about the event:

You are invited to the American Physical Society (APS) 4 Corners Annual meeting at ASU, on Friday and Saturday, October 16 and 17.

Register at https://www.aps.org/memb-sec/meeting/startpage.cfm?event_id=1162

Teachers (HS & TYC) & retirees can register at a reduced rate of $65.

      Includes lunch on Friday, and coffee breaks on Friday & Saturday.

      Membership in APS is not required (click on register as a non-member) .

Some reasons to come:

*  Saturday plenary on physics education research by Noah Finkelstein, University of Colorado.

*  Invited talk by Kelli Gamez Warble, ASU Teacher-in-Residence in the Dept. of Physics.

Earl Barrett and I submitted these abstracts for 12-minute talks (including Q & A):

Earl's title:  The Need for Increased High School Physics Enrollment in Arizona

ABSTRACT:

    Enrollment has declined for regular high school physics in Arizona; and Arizona is doing poorly compared to the nation. In Maricopa County, only 20 percent of high school students take physics, while nationwide almost 40 percent do.

    To prepare our students for Arizona's share of millions of new STEM jobs, we should do all we can to interest more high school students in physics, while attracting a world-class group of physics teachers. Physics is STEM. Physics is the one class that makes math make sense and strengthens all skills a student needs for STEM career success. We recommend physics as a choice for the 4th math course.

Jane's title:  How we can increase enrollment in high school physics

ABSTRACT:

    Physics is seen as a course only for the mathematically adept, in most high schools in Maricopa County. This is poor policy, because physics is the ideal course to reinforce skills students learn in math classes. Also it is inequitable, hindering most high school students from pursuing STEM-related careers.

    The AAPT goal is physics for ALL. Research shows that physics is the chief pathway to STEM-related careers.  Our school strategy to increase physics enrollment is simple, requiring a reform-minded teacher, changing attitudes, and ensuring that physics students have 21st century equipment.

   Also, we will need more physics teachers, so we must financially support the ASU summer Modeling Instruction program, which has enabled many biology and chemistry teachers to retool successfully to physics. The American Physical Society recognized Modeling Instruction with the 2014 Excellence in Physics Education Award.  https://physics.asu.edu/graduate/mns

Some other dates of interest, from my previous email:

September 26^th: Fall meeting of the Arizona AAPT. This will be a really good meeting. It’s at ASU, and there are some great speakers. Bob Culbertson will talk about how ASU is changing its physics classes, and Chris Ubing will be giving a demo on the I/O take-home labs he is piloting with the University of Illinois physics education group. Here is an agenda for the meeting, from Jim Ward, who is president of our local section of the AAPT, called the AZAAPT:

General Meeting Agenda

Arizona State University

September 26, 2015

 

Agenda

 

8:45 – 9:15               Check in and continental breakfast.

9:15 – 9:45               How to increase Physics student enrollment,    Jane Jackson,

                                 Melissa Girmscheid, Zachary Kovach

 

9:45 – 10:30             Business Meeting / Election of Officers

10:30 – 11:30           ‘EMystery Box’, (Participants will engage in activities used to foster productive conversation about the true nature of science, and how to ensure our classrooms reflect it.) 

                                            Kelli Warble

 

11:30 – 11:50           Resources for graduate credit to meet the new MCCCD requirements, 

                                 Robert Culbertson

 

12:00 - 1:00              Lunch

1:15 – 2:30               Evolution of Physics Instruction, Robert Culbertson

 

                                 Rube Goldberg Projects, Amy Johnson

 

                                 IO Lab, Newton’s third Law, Christopher Ubing

                                

Click the link to registerhttp://www.azaapt.org/Fall%202015.html  

It only takes a minute so do it now before you forget.

Future TAPT meetings are also scheduled for November 14^th and December 12^th. Programs to be announced.

October 17^th: There is a Star Party put on by (I think) the Cochise Amateur Astronomy group. It will be held at Kartchner Caverns! The Party starts at 1:00 with solar viewing, and I think you will be able to go into the cavern. At 5:00, U of A Professor Chris Impey will be speaking, then viewing goes into the night hours.

October 18^th: THE PUMPKIN TOSS! Applications are available at TucsonPumpkinToss.org, and are being accepted now. Run by Bruce Bayly and the Physics Factory, this is a great opportunity for student participation, or just to watch the excitement on the mall. Don’t miss this!

As usual, please email me if you have suggestions or questions. See you soon!

Karie

Meeting Notes From August 29th

Tucson-Area Physics Teachers,

Here are some notes from our meeting last Saturday, Aug. 29th. Sorry to have waited this long, there aren’t quite enough hours in the day. Please feel free to let me know if I’ve left something out, there is a lot of information and my notes aren’t completely legible.

Some dates to put on your calendar:

September 26^th: Fall meeting of the Arizona AAPT. This will be a really good meeting. It’s at ASU, and there are some good speakers. Bob Culbertson will talk about how ASU is changing its physics classes, and Chris Ubing will be giving a demo on the I/O take-home labs he is piloting with the University of Illinois physics education group.

October 3^rd: TAPT Kickoff Breakfast at the University of Arizona Physics Department. We, by which I mean J.D., are working on a speaker. Details to follow.

Future TAPT meetings are also scheduled for November 14^th and December 12^th. Programs to be announced, but just to tantalize you: we are trying for a report on the Ceres Dawn mission, J.D. might talk about the thermodynamics of geysers and volcanoes, DaNal will talk about Chernobyl, and we’d like to have a meeting dedicated to how people are flipping their classrooms, a lot or a little. We have more than we can fit in, so stay tuned. If you have some input and weren’t at the meeting, feel free to email me.

October 17^th: There is a Star Party put on by (I think) the Cochise Amateur Astronomy group. It will be held at Kartchner Caverns! The Party starts at 1:00 with solar viewing, and I think you will be able to go into the cavern. At 5:00, U of A Professor Chris Impey will be speaking, then viewing goes into the night hours.

October 18^th: THE PUMPKIN TOSS! Applications are available at TucsonPumpkinToss.org, and are being accepted now. Run by Bruce Bayly and the Physics Factory, this is a great opportunity for student participation, or just to watch the excitement on the mall. Don’t miss this!

We had a very nice meeting Saturday, with lots of lively discussion.

Many thanks to Jim Housley, friend of TAPT, who sent some demos to share. They were beautiful and awesome. If you have questions or want to talk to Jim about demos you would like to have, you can email him at jmhousley@aol.com.

Dave Katz showed the phone hack that makes your phone into a magnifier, using a cheap laser pointer lens. DaNel Hogan, who is the STEM Coordinator at the Pima County School Superintendent’s Office, had actually showed us this last year – she has a write-up on it on her website, which you should look at (http://www.stemazing.org), and you should subscribe to her newsletter, STEMAZing: Subscribe to STEMAZing. You can also join the STEMAZing group on Facebook.

DaNel Hogan and Bruce Bayly received a grant to buy some stuff that they will lend to teachers: A set of Little Bits, and a Space-time simulator, which sounds really cool,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfuyZlxhrEU. Contact DaNel or Bruce if you are interested.

DaNel might be in the Ukraine now, as she was selected as part of a group to visit Chernobyl. She will give a talk on her trip to TAPT soon.

Demian Quiroz is doing the cardboard boat project that Dawn Pelayo gave a talk on last year. If you need cardboard, DaNel Hogan has a source – something about mattress sales. Contact her if you need cardboard. (DaNel.Hogan@schools.pima.gov,Tel: 520-724-8395)

If you are trying to get school supplies, people have some suggestions:

For clubs, try SupportMyClub.org.

For classroom supplies and projects: DonorsChoose.org and GoFundMe.com

I looked at all of these and they seem pretty easy to use.

Fritz’s Books: 

Birth of a Theorem – A Mathematical Adventure, by Cedric Villani.

Dirt, by William Logan. A favorite of Fritz, and 2015 is International Year of Soil, (as well as Light).

How to Bake pi, by Eugenia Cheng, also a favorite of Fritz

Life’s Engines, Falkowski, by a geochemist about how microscopic life runs the world.

Mystery of Time, by John Langone? This book, unfortunately, didn’t make it around the table, because people started reading it during the meeting, so I’m not sure of the author. A quick search on Amazon gave this version, but I’m not sure it’s the one Fritz brought – maybe he will offer more clarification, or bring it again.

Practical Criticism, by I. A. Richards. This book is about the practice of close reading, and is one of Amazon’s best books of 2015.

Let me know if you have questions or comments. Thanks to everyone who came to the meeting. 

I hope to see everyone on October 3^rd, at our University of Arizona Breakfast Meeting!

Best,

Karie