Meeting Tomorrow

TAPT-ers,

We meet tomorrow at J.D. Garcia's house, 3100 E Calle Portal, at 9:00 for potluck breakfast and demo sharing. Hope to see you all there!  New teachers welcome! Bring a demo to share if you can.

Best,

Karie

Einstein Schools Program

The Einstein Schools Program is an IAU100 Global Project that provides an opportunity for classrooms around the world to learn about, explore, and communicate Einstein’s theories about gravity in astronomy during the 100th anniversary year of the 1919 eclipse and experiment that proved his theory correct. (The IAU is the International Astronomical Union.) The program is offered at no cost.

Learn more and register your interest at einsteinschools.org.

Einstein Schools posters have been created to help publicize the program. They are available for download in a variety of sizes (school district approved posters will be available on the Einstein Schools website before the holidays):

Large PDF file (6.1MB):
  https://www.einsteinschools.org/img/Are-you-an-Einstein-School.pdf

Medium PNG file (126 KB):
  https://www.einsteinschools.org/img/Are-you-an-Einstein-School-lg.png

Small PNG file (57 KB):
  https://www.einsteinschools.org/img/Are-you-an-Einstein-School-sm.png

Questions? Contact info@einsteinschools.org.

Best regards,

The Einstein Schools Team

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

More information:

The goal of the Einstein Schools is to encourage schools to establish a long-term, playful and creative program to study the ideas of Einstein, how light is affected by gravity, and the origin and detection of gravity waves. Einstein Schools will emphasize worldwide collaboration among schools to:
            • Encourage creativity
            • Encourage exploration through broad questions
            • Cultivate talented youth
            • Excite student interest

The schools will use creative approaches to communicate what students learned:
            • Animations (e.g., stop motion, clay, etc.)
            • Story telling
            • Games (design a new one?)
            • Cartoons and graphic novels
            • Creating an app or simulation
            • Music or song writing
            • Dance
            • Creating physical models
            • Toys (design a new one?)
            • Drama or debate
            • Visual arts
            • Photography
            • Short films
            • Advertisements

The program is:
            • Customizable, & flexible
            • Adaptable for Middle & High School
            • Not a curriculum, but an interdisciplinary project

There will be a special focus on the total solar eclipse in July, 2019, and the next one in December 2020.

As an Einstein School, you will receive:
            • Identity and recognition as an “Einstein School”
            • Curated high-quality internet resources that promote student creativity and engagement
            • Web site for schools to share ideas, progress
            • Opportunities to communicate and work with other Einstein Schools worldwide
            • Opportunities to use robotic telescopes to research the most interesting objects
            • Access to a mentor: Astronomers serve as local or on-line mentors.

Visit einsteinschools.org to find out how to get involved.

Meeting December 8th

TAPT-ers,

We'll meet Saturday, December 8th, at 9:00 at J.D. Garcia's house, [use contact form to ask for address]. New people welcome. This meeting will be a demo share - bring your favorite demo to share. Since everyone is so busy this time of year, feel free to do whatever is easiest for you. We'll do our usual breakfast potluck, and there will be time for book discussion and socializing. As usual, we aim to end by 11:00.

Hope to see you there!

Best,

Karie

Annual Breakfast This Saturday

All Tucson Area Physics Teachers and Friends,

The Physics Department's TAPT Annual Breakfast is scheduled for Saturday, September 8th, at 8:30 AM, in the PAS Building, Room 218. Only the West doors will be open. Breakfast will be supplied by the University of Arizona Physics Department. It's always great.

To note: we will start at 8:30 am.

J.D. has, as usual, gotten a great speaker for the morning. Dr. Warren Beck is a faculty member in the Physics and Geosciences Departments. He will talk about Global Warming. Here is an abstract:

Global Warming: Many Questions and Fewer Answers

Since the start of the Industrial Revolution (Circa 1800 AD), atmospheric CO2 concentrations have risen from 280 ppm (parts per million) to 411 ppm, and this increase is due almost entirely to increased fossil fuel burning and land use changes associated with human activities.

 CO2 is a greenhouse gas, thus, higher atmospheric concentrations should lead to a warmer Earth.  This is an inescapable conclusion reached when using simple Energy Balance models of climate. But the climate system has a large dynamic component which is not revealed by Energy Balance models alone. Changes in dynamics could potentially lead to more efficient heat radiation processes—or make them less efficient.

This leads us to the obvious question: Is the recent global warming trend caused by these increased (Anthropogenic) greenhouse gasses?  If so, what will happen if we continue to add CO2 to the atmosphere by burning additional fossil fuels?

These two questions are surprisingly difficult to answer.  Finding an answer requires not only energy balance models of climate, but rather the use of general circulation models (GCM’s) that show how climate responds to changes in greenhouse gasses. GCM’s use finite-element methods and thermodynamics to predict how the worlds oceans and atmosphere will respond dynamically to this greenhouse gas perturbation. Such dynamics control the pattern of major wind belts, which couple to ocean currents.  These dynamics control where the rain falls and where it doesn’t, and where ice accumulates and where it melts. They control the patterns of where  deserts or jungles  develop, and in so doing influence Earths energy balance via feedback involving albedo (reflectivity). Such dynamics even influences how fast ocean water circulates into the oceans deep interior, and whether they carry with them large amounts of dissolved anthropogenic CO2 captured from the atmosphere—or not. This so-called Thermohaline Circulation may ultimately control how extreme climate change from human influences may become. The ocean interior can be a potent buffer on atmospheric CO2 concentrations, which dissolve into cold descending waters near the poles, but are also released from upwelling waters in the tropics. The ocean interor has a large CO2 storage capacity, but changing ocean stratification can affect how efficiently it can remove CO2 from the atmosphere, and for how long.  Thus the carbon cycle is coupled in fundamental ways to the climate system, and how the atmosphere couples dynamically to the ocean.

Please join us at 8:30 Saturday PAS 218. If you know of anyone interested in this topic, or in joining TAPT, please be sure to pass along this invitation.

Best,

Karie

Meeting Tomorrow and LSST Talk Next Week

Hello all,

I wanted to bring this talk to your attention. We've had several talks and other events with the LSST community. This general public talk would be a great event to attend and to send your students to. The LSST is an amazing project, and there's going to be SO MUCH data.

Hope to see everyone at J.D.'s tomorrow at 9:00 am. If you've never been to a meeting, now's a great time to start.

Best,

Karie

As part of the annual Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) Project and Community Workshop taking place in Tucson next week, you are invited to join the LSST team for an evening of astronomy at this free, public talk: 

Exploring the Final Frontier with LSST

Thursday, August 16^th, 2018

7:00 pm, Turquoise Ballroom

El Conquistador Tucson, a Hilton Resort
10000 North Oracle Road, Tucson, AZ 85704 

Cosmologist Phil Marshall and Education Specialist Ardis Herrold along with Project Manager Victor Krabbendam will describe the construction status of the LSST, its mission of exploration, and how you can be involved in the discoveries of this amazing science engine.  Currently under construction in Chile, LSST really is a telescope for everyone.  We encourage you to learn more about Tucson’s leadership role in this exciting project and how you can participate in—and benefit from—LSST’s ten-year voyage of scientific discovery. www.lsst.org

More information is available at http://ls.st/o8b

Physics Opportunity with Stipend

Hi All, 

Hope your summer is going well. I'm forwarding this from Danel Hogan, our local Einstein Fellow and Science Education organizer. If you can get to Chicago, it's a great opportunity to work at Fermilab with the QuarkNet educational initiative.

Best,

Karie

Karie-

There are still a few spots left in this PD in Chicago. I know it is a long shot for our folks here but someone might have family there or just be really interested in this opportunity. Can you please pass it along to the TAPT group?

Grateful,

DaNel

Hope this blast E-mail finds you enjoying some well-deserved summertime! While this communication is directed mainly to Physics teachers, (or more loosely defined, "Teachers of Physics") the hope is that---if you cannot take advantage of this unique offer yourself---possibly you will pass on the information to your Science colleagues back at your respective schools.

Greetings, Science Teachers!

We are members of the Fermilab/University of Chicago QuarkNet Center and among the things we do is host a summer workshop for high school teachers of physics like you. Please consider this your personal invitation to our workshop this summer. This year we had about 100 applicants for 4 student research positions. We are excited by the amount of interest in the program and appreciate your continued support!

Workshop Description:
Title: QuarkNet Workshop: Teaching with Data
Description: Activities will focus on research data. Participants will work with scientists from Fermilab and University of Chicago to look at the research projects done by our QuarkNet students, and transform those ideas into student learning at their schools.

Dates: July 18th, July 19th, July 20th
Cost: $0
Stipend: $300 for full attendance
ISBE Recertification: 16.5 PDH's

Click here to register online: 
http://eddata.fnal.gov/lasso/program_search/workshop-db-form-select-pass.lasso?session_id=2221

Fermilab educator workshops provide K–12 teachers with proven classroom activities and strategies for teaching challenging topics in an engaging way.

For the calendar of workshops at Fermilab, you can use:
http://eddata.fnal.gov/lasso/program_search/calendar_workshops_new.lasso

George Dzuricsko
gdzurics@fnal.gov

cell 630.687.2929

---

George Dzuricsko

Faculty, Applied Science Division

De La Salle Institute

End of Year Party

TAPT will celebrate the end of the school year Saturday, May 26th, at J.D. Garcia's house, [use contact form to request address]. We'll meet at 5:30 pm for burgers and end-of-the-year conversation. Bring a demo you used this year if you have one, or anything else you'd like to share.

Please bring a dish to share, and maybe a drink if you like something special. We'll have burgers and all the fixins, plus some soft drinks. Families and guests are welcome!

Hope to see you all there. A quick note to me to let me know about how many burgers (beef, chicken or veggie) your group might consume would be appreciated.

Saturday!

Best,

Karie

Meeting this Saturday

TAPT-ers,

We meet this Saturday, April 14th, at J.D. Garcia's house at 9:00 am for potluck breakfast and a talk. Our original speaker had to cancel, but we have another great speaker: Professor Tom Bever from the departments of Linguistics, Psychology and Neurosciences, maybe more. He will be talking about his research, of which he says: 

 "I have some results on how the combination of natural law and the visual system leads to the preference for the golden mean, AND how they also lead to a prediction about depth perception, which we have confirmed.

It combines some discussion of Art as well as relation to language structure."

Please join us at J.D.'s for what will be a very enlightening talk with, I'm sure, much conversation.

See you there!

--Karie

Last Meeting's Notes and Upcoming AzAAPT

TAPT,

I haven't been too successful in selling AzAAPT meetings to the Tucson crowd, but they are always interesting. There are some great physics teachers in Phoenix and surrounding areas, and I always learn a lot. My husband and I are driving up Friday night, and could take a rider. I copied Jim Ward's email below, so take a look, I think it will be a good meeting, and you can see Lowell Observatory as a side trip. I spent many nights there in my youth.

TAPT meets the following Saturday, April 14th. We have a speaker, thanks to J.D. Her name is Dr. Elena Plante, and she will be talking about language and learning. I'll have more information soon. 

Our meeting last Saturday (March 24) was great - Fritz knows so much! We talked about the book Learn Better, and I did distribute Fritz's notes for your perusal. Some of the highlights:

• How people learn to do math on an abacus is different than on paper, and apparently better. Something about a physical connection association with the processes. One Irish philosopher thinks the hand is part of the mind.
• Fritz thinks there is something missing in the theory of cognition, something that has to do with energy - energy is part of learning and gestures are part of that.
• A positive attitude toward math makes people do better at math. Maybe that's what good parents provide.
• Steve Jobs trained himself not to give feedback - he didn't even blink!
• Good decisions take energy. Parole board clemency decreases right before lunch.
• If students get in the habit of working, they use less energy to make themselves do it and have more left over for cognition
• Poverty is noisy.

At our April meeting, I think we should have a discussion about Pam Tautz's "flashy thing", that piece of equipment that makes a motion map on students' phones. Pam, can you bring some cost estimates?

Thanks as usual to all who attended. 

Hope to see you one of the next two Saturdays!

Best,

Karie

Last Meeting's Notes

TAPT-ers,

Just a quick re-cap of our meeting last week. Many thanks to Jim Housley for a great program and for bringing a lot of great stuff. Most equipment was snapped up. I have a few things if you would like them – a density set, and a dial indicator with an attached bracket and metal bar for set-up.

Among the demos Jim showed:

·      A float and chain engineering set – I hadn’t seen this before and they were all snapped up, so I’m not sure what all was included. It’s an engineering apparatus that asks students to develop different measuring devices – it’s super cool.

·      The dial indicators that we’ve seen before. Jim had a great idea for a lab – do a Hooke’s law experiment with the unit of mass being one student mass. The dial indicator can be on the floor, then one student at a time move to the indicator. As more students get close, the indicator shows more floor depression, and that can be turned into a displacement of the spring inside to graph an F vs x line whose slope is the spring constant.  We tried it on J.D.’s floor using teacher mass as the independent variable, but his floor is just too solid. Jim says it works well on any floor except the ground floor. The dial indicator can measure depressions or changes of 1/1000 of an inch.

·      A UV filter kit: one lens filters UV, one doesn’t. Everything looks the same until you have something that is fluorescing – best used outside. This has lots of potential in chemistry and physics. Jim had some UV beads that fluoresce in the sun.

·      Some beads that Jim bought at the bead show. These were beautiful. They look sky blue when the light source is off to the side, and reddish-yellow when you look through them at a light source. Just like the atmosphere. Jim surmised that there are small particles embedded in the plastic that scatter light.

Our next meeting is March 17^th. J.D. is working on a speaker. Also, in April (our tentative date is April 14^th) we are discussing the book Learn Better, by Ulrich Boser. I have several more copies of the book, thanks to Fritz Fisher. Let me know if you need one, I can send it through the mail. I will bring them to our March meeting too. I’ll also bring extra equipment from Jim.

Hope to see you all soon.

Best,

Karie

More on This Saturday

Hi Tucson Physics Teachers,

Here's our plan for Saturday, February 3rd. We are meeting at J.D. Garcia's house, [use Contact form for address], in the morning at 9:00 am - notice the slightly later time. We will have breakfast potluck and our guest is Jim Housley, teacher emeritus and physics lab equipment manufacturer. We will aim to end at 11:00.

I've invited everyone for dinner at my house in the evening at 5:00. I tried to send a google invite, but it didn't work as well as I'd hoped. If you are planning to come, or tentatively planning to come, it would be helpful if you would shoot me another email. I guess I have to figure out that calendar thing for next time. At any rate, you are welcome to bring a guest, we will eat and socialize with the Housleys. My address is [use Contact form for address and directions].

And please feel free to come even if you forget to RSVP. 

Hope to see you at either or both events!

Best, 

Karie

Meeting this Saturday

TAPT,

We will meet Saturday at 9:00 at J.D. Garcia's house. Our guest is Jim Housley from Alaska - do you wonder why he likes to come to Tucson? We will have the usual potluck breakfast, so bring a dish to share if you can.

Jim is bringing some good stuff to show us, and much of it will be available for your classroom. 

In addition, I'd like to invite everyone to my house Saturday night for some more social time with Jim and his wife Karen. Chris and I will be cooking, or at least serving food -  it may or may not be homemade. Please join us at 5-ish for dinner and conversation with Jim and Karen. I'll send an invite through my Google calendar. Families or guests welcome.

Hope to see you Saturday!

Best,

Karie

James Housley On the Way!

TAPT-ers,

Sorry, I neglected to send this over the weekend, I temporarily lost it in my mountains of email.

From Jim:

Here is a list of items that I have in some degree of surplus, and available to bring

Float and chain engineering problem solving set:  ability to make one each of a thermometer, a hydrometer, a barometer, and a milligram balance, and to modify them to vary their sensitivity and/or range.  This was discontinued from PASCO's catalog a few years ago in a housekeeping purge, but perhaps someone has an old pasco catalog and could see details.  This was my response to need for STEM before STEM became a thing.

Mirrors 150 mm sq, with a base that holds them normal to a table top. Lots of uses besides the obvious.

Density sets of 12 pieces of aluminum, all different sizes.  Graphing mass vs volume gives a straight line graph, whose slope is the density of aluminum.

UV color shifting beads, white but become colored under uv, including the uv in sunlight. Then return to white after a delay. also transparent disks that appear identical, but some block uv, while some transmit it.  results can be seen using the beads.

thick plastic material that has amazing thermal expansion in hot or cold tap water.  disks, and pieces that have holes that are a near fit for the disks.  like the classic brass ball and ring apparatus, but no bunsen burner is needed.

Small vacuum pump and bell jar, a few sets.

Singing rods, that can can be stroked to make a longitudinal oscillation with loud sound.

A small number (3?) to donate of the dial indicatiors that I showed once before that Karie mentioned in her e-mail.  They show how it is that a seemingly immovable floor or wall can exert a force.  I will try to bring some ancillary parts to make all this ready to do this demo.

No guarantees as to quantities I can bring, but I will bring the largest item of luggage allowable on the plane, and will try to respond to requests.  NOTE NOTE NOTE I will seal up the box or large suitcase Tuesday night (1/23) so any requests after will likely have to wait an extra year.

James Housley

Transparent Devices LLC

Physical Address:

2375 Jordan Ave.

Unit 5 Shop

Juneau, Ak  99801

US Mail Address:

PO 32777

Juneau, Ak   99803

(907)586-8909 phone

(907) 586-8908 Fax

Meeting Tomorrow

TAPT,

We meet Saturday at Pima Community College West Campus, in room F130, at 9:00 am. NOTICE: let's start a half-hour later, at 9:00 since Pima is a little farther away. I'll bring coffee; bring a dish to share if you can. 

This meeting is a lab share. It's in a laboratory space. I'll show a lab on moment of inertia, and you'll be welcome to explore Pima's equipment, which I think is great. If you have a good lab or activity, please bring it, or maybe a sample of it, or maybe a description.

To get to F130, park on the north side of Pima. You will come in on Greasewood, then go to the north (left) of the buildings. Go past the solar parking panels, and park in front of the J building. Walk up one flight of steps, then go through the corridor past the restrooms to the main courtyard. We will be across from the main physics lab. I'll try to put some signs up to guide us. 

If you park on the south side, you still have to come up to the first level. When you are in the central quad area, the F building will be to the East. There are two physics labs, with an area with tables between them.

If you get there and can't find it, call or text me at 520-990-6980. It's a rather confusing campus.

Hope to see you all Saturday!

Best,

Karie