Spring conference in South Lake Tahoe, April 21, 2012

Join us at Lake Tahoe Community College for a day of physics education.

Saturday, April 21st

All sessions are held in the Duke Theater, Room F111

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New physics job listings bulletin board on our website

For 2012 we’re introducing a new online bulletin board where you can post and search for job openings. The web address is http://ncnaapt.org/jobs.

• To search, just click the links in the menu on the right side.
• To post, click the “Register” link at the bottom of the right side menu, and follow the simple instructions to register. You can then post your job opening announcement.

We are limiting postings to positions at schools, colleges, and universities, so please don’t post jobs with tutoring agencies, etc. (if you’d like us to do this, please contact us with what you’d like to post and we’ll reconsider this policy). The NCN AAPT website gets about 500 hits per month, so we hope to be a resource for connecting job seekers with jobs.

Call for presentations at our spring meeting

Our spring conference is set for Saturday, April 21, 2012. The location will be Lake Tahoe Community College, in South Lake Tahoe, CA. We’re now looking for proposals for talks/papers (10-15 minutes) and programs/workshops (30 minutes to two hours).

We accept proposals in all areas of physics education and/or research, and we usually can fit them all in. Deadline for submissions is March 5, 2012. This year we’re taking all proposals online, you can submit yours at http://ncnaapt.org/submit.

First timers are particularly encouraged to submit a proposal–remember that AAPT and its sections exist largely through the contributions of its members (we usually have an invited keynote speaker, but the rest of the program is “just us”). If you’re doing something in your classroom/lecture hall/lab that you’re proud of, please take this opportunity to share it with others (and remember, there’s almost nothing that’s truly new in education, so don’t worry if you think someone has presented it before).

Keep your eyes peeled on out site for registration information (we’ll post this in early March), and be sure to Friend us if you’re on Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Northern-CaliforniaNevada-Section-American-Association-of-Physics-Teachers/127898515559

Lodging in South Tahoe

Our Saturday, April 21, 2012 conference may entice people to spend a night or two in (possibly) the snow. Below are options for lodging in the South Lake Tahoe area:

Hotels

The lodge of choice is Timber Cove Lodge (Best Western).  This hotel is right on the water, includes breakfast, and is 1.25 miles from the college.  They are holding 40 rooms at a group rate of $87.99 per night (mention AAPT).  The phone number is 530-541-6722.

Another close hotel is the Motel 6, which is not bad.  The rate is $49.99 per night and it is also about 1.25 miles from the college.  The phone number is 530-542-1400.

Casinos

If people are interested in staying at a casino, they are around 7 or 8 miles from the college.  The nicest is Montbleu, and Harrah’s is also nice.

• Montbleu – $130 – $159  phone 1 888 829 7630
• Harrahs – $79.00 – $109 phone 1 775 588 6611

Vacation getaway

If you are interested in really having a Tahoe vacation, I recommend The Fire Side Inn.  This is a 15 – 20 minute drive from the college, and is right at the edge of town, close to beaches, the bike trail, etc.  They include complimentary snow-shoes, bikes and a sledding hill.  They are a very cozy, cabin like place.  $119 – $255.  Phone 530-544-5515.

View South Lake Tahoe lodging for NCN AAPT meeting in a larger map

Spring Conference/Meeting, save the date: Saturday, April 21, 2012

Our spring conference is set for Saturday, April 21, 2012. The location will be Lake Tahoe Community College, in South Lake Tahoe, CA. More information, and a call for presentations/papers, will be coming in early 2012, but keep the date on your calendar.

We will likely have a social event, but we haven’t yet decided on Friday evening or Saturday evening. There’s also been talk of a group ski event on Sunday (hope for late snow)!

Keep your eyes peeled on out site, and be sure to Friend us if you’re on Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Northern-CaliforniaNevada-Section-American-Association-of-Physics-Teachers/127898515559

Please take a moment to help us plan the best weekend:

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Fall 2011 Conference at UC Berkeley

Join us the first weekend in November at UC Berkeley for a day and a half of physics education.

Friday evening, November 4th

Social and Lecture Demo Show

• 5:30 No-Host Dinner at Chianlai Thai Cuisine, 2505 Hearst St.
• 6:30 Welcome Gathering and Social
• 7:30 Lecture Demo Sho

Saturday, November 5

Program

• 8:00 Registration, coffee, donuts
• 9:00 Welcome
• 9:15 Show and Tell
• 10:15 Break
• 10:30 “Physics for Future Presidents — A new approach for the non-science student.” Invited speaker: Richard Muller, Professor of Physics, U.C. Berkeley, Faculty Senior Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
• 11:30 Group photo
• 11:45 Lunch
• 12:45 Business meeting (in just 15 minutes!)
• 1:00 Two options:
• Tour of Physics Research Labs. Guided tours of physics faculty labs in Astrophysics, Condensed Matter & Materials Science, and Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics, led by graduate students and researchers.
• Roundtable Discussion for high school teachers to discuss common problems and solution.
• 2:15 Break
• 2:30 Two options:
• Three concurrent workshops featuring labs and lecture demonstrations from Berkeley and other schools (contributions welcome). Spend the full period in one or circulate among the labs to see them all.
• Modeling Instruction introduction workshop
• 4:00 End

Map

View NCN AAPT Conference at UCB November 2011 in a larger map and/or get directions

Complete program

Download our complete program in PDF format here.

Registration

$20 for NCN AAPT members (includes one lunch ticket). First timers are always free (lunch tickets for first timers are $10). Lunch will be beef, turkey, or veggie sandwiches.

Pre-registration is not required, but will help us know how many people to expect:

(The registration below says it’s free, but that’s just because we’re not collecting payment online. The usual registration fees apply, including free admission for first time attendees.)

[EVENT_REGIS_CATEGORY event_category_id="section"]

Professional Development Opportunities for Physics Teachers

The Physics Teacher Education Coalition (PTEC) has a great new map of professional development opportunities across the US. Use the map to find professional development opportunities for physics and astronomy inservice and preservice teachers: http://www.ptec.org/pd/

Spring Section Conference

Our spring 2011 Spring Conference has two components:

Highlights:

Friday Evening Social

April 22: San Mateo High School

• Hot Dog Reception
• Tour of new biotech wing
• “My Favorite Movie Clips” presented by Adam Weiner and Paul Robinson

More details below

Saturday Mini-Conference

April 23: Exploratorium, San Francisco

• Show and Tell
• Invited speaker, Adam Weiner: “Don’t Try This at Home! The Physics of Hollywood Movies”
• Brief business meeting
• “A Physics Teachers’ Guided Tour of the Exploratorium” by Paul Doherty
• Contributed presentations

More details below.

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Renewable Energy Workshop at UC Berkeley, March 5-6, 2011

The workshop is sponsored by the AAPT as well as the APS Forum on Physics and Society as well as the new APS Topical Group on Energy Research and Applications.

It will be held March 5-6 at UC Berkeley (Evans Hall 10).

The workshop should be of interest to faculty who wish to introduce energy topics into their courses as well as advanced students who might be interested in some aspect of energy research. A similar course organized three years ago was considered a great success. Participants will receive a book of the talks presented.

REGISTER SOON. We sold out when a similar course was offered three years ago.

For more information, see http://www.calpoly.edu/~dhafemei/APSenergy.html

(Thanks to Barbara Levi from Southern Cal AAPT for working on this program and forwarding us the information.)

Modeling Workshop

20 educators attended the afternoon “Introduction to Modeling” workshop lead by Lee Trampleasure and Jon Rockman. Educators were lead through the development of one of the Modeling “paradigm labs.”  The lab used constant velocity cars to develop position vs time data that could be graphed to determine the average velocity of the cars. After groups graphed their data, they created whiteboard presentations of their results. After a discussion of the results, Lee presented data from his classes this year, showing the results of 20 student groups.

For more information on Modeling Instruction, visit modeling.asu.edu.