Notes From December 12th Meeting

To TAPT,

Once again, I know I’m late with meeting notes from our meeting of December 12th, now over a week ago. The last week of school is always a bit busy for me.

We had lots of interesting visitors at the last meeting. We had a surprise visit from Erik Herman, who was driving the original Physics Bus. It was fantastic! We all got to have a quick tour before they headed off to the street fair. Erik, who graduated from the U of A teacher prep program, is now working in physics education outreach at Cornell University. The bus was amazing. 

Many thanks to our two guests from the Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association, Jim Heasley and Mike Magras, who gave a wonderful presentation. They have a dark site about two hours from Tucson. They will host school groups there. To see pictures of their site, google Chiricahua Astronomy Complex. They have a 14” Celestron with a rolling roof. We are hoping for a TAPTouting to the site! It will be awesome. DaNel Hogan and I are going to work on it in for next spring. With professional development credit.

Meanwhile, if you would like to work with the TAAA for your class or your school, you can contact Jim Heasley at jnheasley@gmail.com. They will be happy to come visit your club or class, and brainstorm some activities that the group might like. They can do a star party, and then move on from there if you have a group that becomes interested in astronomy and would like to camp out at the TAAA dark site. This is a great group with lots of resources that they would love to share in order to get people interested in science. 

In addition, Jim Heasley, who is a former University of Hawaii astronomer, suggested a project that he thinks would make a good science fair project. People mentioned dry labs from Project CLEA and MatLab, which has a dry lab on measuring the speed of light. Jim Heasley suggested a photographic project: take a digital photo of Jupiter every night for some period of time. Using the photos of the moons of Jupiter, deduce Kepler’s law of period vs. orbital radius. The site Ugly Hedgehog was mentioned - it’s a photography site, so I think Jim was referring to it as having some hints for taking pictures of Jupiter.

Some other news: DaNel Hogan of the STEMAZing project (you should be on her mailing list) has macro lenses for 10 cents each. Also, she showed us a cool hologram viewer that you can use to see holograms from the YouTube pictures that people post. It’s amazing. Instructions, and much more, are on her site stemazing.org. Go there for some great demonstrations, sign up for the STEMAZing newsletter, sign up for workshops, lots of other great stuff. Also, DaNel visited Chernobyl. Stay tuned, she will be talking to the group about it next semester.

I am planning a Modeling Workshop for June 13th through July 1st. I’m working on getting some outside funding, so can’t tell right now how much it will cost. If you are interested, please let me know.

Our January planning meeting will be January 23rd at J.D.’s house. We are also planning a meeting in February during the Gem Show, hoping Jim Housely, our friend from Alaska can join us.

Hope everyone has a Happy Holiday! See you next year!

Karie

One More Reminder - Meeting on Saturday

Fellow physics teachers,

Just a quick reminder that we will be hosting the Tucson Amateur Astronomical Association Saturday (Dec 12)  at 8:30 am at J.D. Garcia’s house. (Directions attached.) Bring a dish to share if you can, holiday-themed or not. If you don’t have time to cook or pick something up, don’t worry about it, we always have enough. We will get to hear about the TAAA’s education outreach program, and how they have worked with BASIS schools. They are ready and willing to work with teachers, and hope to spread the word about their programs. I know they have some great educators and some great equipment, so I hope to see everyone there.

Take a break from grading and come chat with your fellow end-of-the-semester sufferers. Hope to see you there!

—Karie

Meeting This Saturday

Hi TAPT-ers,

A quick reminder that we meet Saturday as the last meeting of the semester. It's going to be a good one with a group of Tucson astronomers who have an education program and would like to come into more classrooms. 

Representatives of the Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association (TAAA) will talk about what they have done with BASIS in the last three years, and what they can offer for your school. They have some great educators and fantastic equipment, and they are hoping to increase their outreach. Attending will be Dr. Jim Heasley, who is a retired University of Hawaii Astronomy professor, and Mike Magras, who has been working with the BASIS schools. It will be super interesting and useful.

We meet at 8:30 am for potluck breakfast and meeting at J.D. Garcia's house (directions attached). If you can't manage to bring a breakfast dish, don't worry about it, we always have plenty. I know it's a busy time of year, but it would be great if we could have a good number of people to see what the TAAA can offer.

Hope to see you all there!

Karie Meyers, Ph.D.