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 26th: 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 3rd: 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 14th and December 12th. 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 17th: 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 18th: 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?
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,
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 3rd, at our University of Arizona Breakfast Meeting!
Best,
Karie
No comments:
Post a Comment