California Assn of Independent Schools Science Development Day

CAIS Professional Development Day

March 12, 2010 to be held at the Exploratorium in San Francisco

• 8:30 am – 9:00 am: Welcome, coffee, bagels and ice breaker,
• 9:00 am – 10:00 am: Two floor tours happening simultaneously; a bio and a physics tour, both led by Exploratorium Teacher Institute staff (Paul Doherty and TBD),
• 10:00 am – 11:30 am: Two hands on workshops happening simultaneously:

Fruits of the Genome Project – Personalized Medicine

given by Karen Kalumuck

In this hands-on interactive workshop, we’ll model laboratory techniques such as DNA microarray analysis that are set to revolutionize the practice of medicine.  By using real-life examples, we’ll discover how personal genomic analysis can be used to effectively tailor treatments to the individual patient, ranging from the best chemotherapy to the most effective antidepressant. The activities can be easily incorporated into your lessons on DNA and molecular biology.

Gravity Wells

given by Paul Doherty

We will use a Gravity Well to explore the orbits of planets, why there are two tides per day, black holes and curved spacetime, as well as the energy levels of atoms.

• 11:30 am – 12:30 am: Lunch
• 12:30 pm – 1:00 pm: Exploratorium Internet Resources, led by Exploratorium Teacher Institute staff Eric Muller,
• 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm: Keynote Presentation by Paul Doherty:

Learn Science by Doing Science with Simple Materials

At the Exploratorium we create exhibits which inspire visitors to interact with the real phenomena of science. The teacher programs at the Exploratorium translate these science explorations into “Snacks”— easy to build explorations using inexpensive materials which motivate students to think and learn. We publish these snacks in books and on web pages. I will present examples of these explorations focusing on electricity, light, and sound.

• 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm: Free time in the Exploratorium,
• 3:00 pm – 3:30 pm: Closing with Paul Doherty.

Cost: $160, breakfast and lunch included

To register contact Nancy Swamy:  nswamy@caisca.org

Questions: Tom Woosnam: twoos@csus.org or 650 375 5402

Deadline to register: March 8

More information about CAIS and this science development day can be found here: http://caisca.org/events_conferencedetails.asp?event=199

NCN AAPT Spring Meeting / Mini Conference

Friday & Saturday April 16^th & 17^th, 2010

American River College

Sacramento, CA (see map below)
Local Host: Chuck Hunt: email: Huntc@arc.losrios.edu

Sign up to present

Call for Presentations

We solicit presentations of 15 minutes in length. Suitable topics include teaching ideas, research projects, laboratory techniques, novel demonstrations, computers and instruction. Please send an abstract of your talk, with title, your name and affiliation, AV and equipment requests, and other requirements to the Program Chairman, Paul Robinson, preferably by email at laserpablo@aol.com. Deadline for submission is Friday, March 5, 2010.

Call for Demonstrations

Bring your favorite 5-minute demonstration for the popular “Show ‘n’ Tell”. Handouts describing your demonstration are encouraged. Likewise, giving contributed papers as Show ‘N Tells is specifically discouraged. Offenders will be gonged! Sign ups are day of the event, first come, first served (although it seems those who signs up always gets to present!). Do you have a great resource you want to share but are nervous about presenting to your peers? Our Show ‘n’ Tell is low pressure and a great place to give your first presentation at a teaching conference!

Program

Friday Evening Social

Plan on getting together Friday evening before the meeting. More details to follow in the program. We’ll also provide references for local lodging for Friday evening.

Saturday meeting/mini conference

Saturday starts at 8:00 with registration and socializing, and usually finishes 3:30/4:00. We have a brief business meeting around lunch time. Coffee/donuts is provided, and lunch is usually available for a reasonable price (reservations for lunch required). Exact details will be published once we have our speaker list set.

Other details

Dues and Don’ts

Section dues are $25 per year, due each Fall. If you cannot attend the meeting, remain an active member that will ensure you’ll receive all our mailings by sending dues to our treasurer Dennis Buckley, Liberty High School, 850 Second St., Brentwood, CA 94513. The registration fee for the Spring meeting is $10, payable at the door. First-timers are free! And don’t forget PTSOS participants—your dues are already paid!

Physics Teacher SOS (PTSOS)

PTSOS is an NCN-AAPT-sponsored project, funded by a substantial donation, allowing AAPT to deliver top quality help to physics teachers in their vulnerable first years of teaching. Workshops are now conducted in both San Mateo and Sacramento. Other veteran teachers are being signed up to help out small groups of local teachers through mentorships and also to help run workshops. Interested teachers are encouraged to visit the website (www.ptsos.org) and contact outreach coordinator Stephanie Finander at sfinander@sbcglobal.net for more information.

Map

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Other Upcoming AAPT Events

• Winter AAPT Meeting, Washington DC, February 13-17, 2010
• Summer Meeting, AAPT, Portland Oregon, July 17-21, 2010
• Fall Meeting, NCN AAPT, 2010, not yet scheduled

Save the date: NCNAAPT Spring Conference

Our spring meeting/conference will be held at American River College (near Sacramento) on April 16th (afternoon/evening) and 17th (all day).

Mark your calendars now. Coming soon: Call for papers, speaker list, travel details, etc.

Science on Saturday at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Science on Saturday (SOS) is a series of science lectures for middle and high school students. Each topic highlights cutting-edge science occurring at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). The talks are presented by leading LLNL science researchers supported by master high school science teachers. These presentations are offered in several locations. See the schedule below to find locations nearest to you.

Admission is free of charge. Seating is on a first come basis. Seats may not be reserved in advance. See the schedule for the starting times of each presentation, and a map to the venue. Seating is limited. Please come early to ensure that you will find a seat.

Students receive a “Student Notes” worksheet to record key information from the talk. The worksheet will be marked with the official SOS stamp at the end of the presentation. Many teachers use the worksheet to award “extra credit.” Students should check with their teacher in advance to determine if they will receive credit for attending SOS.

Teachers who attend the SOS presentations can receive a CD with the presentation slides. If the talk is video recorded, they can receive a DVD of the recorded talk as well. These CDs and DVDs are offered free of charge and are sent by mail after the completion of the lecture series for the year. Be sure to register when you attend to receive your copy of these valuable teaching resources.

Presented by:
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Education Program
Two presentations: 9:30 a.m. and 11:15 a.m.

January 30, 2010

Fighting Super Bugs: Overcoming Antibiotic Resistance
Presenter: Paul Jackson, Teacher: Frankie Tate

February 6, 20a10

Distant Worlds: Making Images of Other Solar Systems
Presenter: Bruce Macintosh and Lisa Poyneer, Teacher: Tom Shefler

February 13, 2010

Put it Back When You are Done: Storing Carbon Dioxide in the Earth not the Atmosphere
Presenter: Roger Aines, Teacher: Ken Wedel

February 20, 2010

Understanding Climate Change: Seeing the Carbon Through the Trees
Presenter: Karis McFarlane, Teacher: Dean Reese

February 27, 2010

Harnessing Fusion Energy: The Power of Light
Presenter: Edward Moses

Complete details at: http://education.llnl.gov/sos/

Dark Secrets: What Science Tells Us About the Hidden Universe: Free talk in Berkeley

“Dark Secrets: What Science Tells Us About the Hidden Universe“

admission free  •  monday, october 26, 2009  •  7:00 – 8:30 pm
Berkeley Repertory Theatre (Roda Stage)
2015 Addison St. Berkeley, CA 9470

No mystery is bigger than dark energy — the elusive force that makes up three-quarters of the Universe and is causing it to expand at an accelerating rate. KTVU Channel 2 health and science editor John Fowler will moderate a panel of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientists who use phenomena such as exploding stars and gravitational lenses to explore the dark cosmos.

Saul Perlmutter heads the Supernova Cosmology Project, which pioneered the use of precise observations of exploding stars to study the expansion of the Universe. His international team was one of two groups who independently discovered the amazing phenomenon known as dark energy, and he led a collaboration that designed a satellite to study the nature of this dark force. He is an astrophysicist at Berkeley Lab and a professor of physics at UC Berkeley.

David Schlegel is a Berkeley Lab astrophysicist and the principal investigator of Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), the largest of four night-sky surveys being conducted in the third phase of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, known as SDSS-III. BOSS will generate a 3-D map of two million galaxies and quasars, using a specially built instrument outfitted with 1,000 optical fibers and mounted on the SDSS telescope in New Mexico.

Alexie Leauthaud is Chamberlain Fellow at Berkeley Lab. Her work probes dark matter in the Universe using a technique called gravitational lensing.  When gravity from a massive object such as a cluster of galaxies warps space around it, this can distort our view of the light from an even more distant object.  The scale and direction of this distortion allows astronomers to directly measure the properties of both dark matter and dark energy.

More details at: www.lbl.gov/LBL-PID/fobl/satt/2009/Oct26/

Free Optics Workshop with goodies

SCIENCE EDUCATORS’ DAY (EDAY)

Special FREE event for Middle and High School Educators

Date: Thursday, October 15, 2009

Time: 5:30-8:00 PM (dinner provided)

Where: Frances C. Arrillaga Stanford Alumni Center – McCaw Hall, Stanford Univ., Palo Alto, CA

Cost: FREE (includes dinner)

The event includes:

• Approximately 20 stations with educators demonstrating and discussing hands-on materials for teaching optics to secondary school students
• Gift bags containing demonstration aids and lesson plans for the first 100 registrants
• Additional optics materials available as door prizes
• A buffet dinner allowing you to mingle with fellow teachers and conference attendees

Questions? Email EDAY@osa.org or call Kylee Coffman at +1 202.416.1420.

Space will be limited! Register Today: www.osa.org/educationresources/youtheducation/educatorsevents/

Fall 2009 Section Meeting/Conference at NASA Ames

Join the Northern California Northern Nevada Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers at our Fall Meeting/Conference

Friday, October 9 and Saturday, October 10, 2009

Friday Evening Social

6:00-8:30 PM at Paul Robinson’s Home (directions)

Guest of Honor: Sy Liebergot, Flight Controller of Mission Control during Apollo Program

Saturday Meeting/Conference

Conference Center, NASA Ames, Moffett Field, CA

Friday Evening Social

6:00-8:30 PM Hot Dog Reception

Complimentary Hot Dogs (beef or tofu) and Beer at “Rancho Robinson”

424 Quartz Street; Redwood City, CA 94062 (directions)

Guest of Honor: Sy Liebergot, Flight Controller of Mission Control during Apollo program.

Sy will share some of his experiences with the filmmakers and actors of Apollo 13. He will also be available to autograph books and answer questions what it was like to be one of the central players on the mission control team–during good times and bad.

Saturday Meeting/Conference

Conference Center, NASA Ames, Moffett Field, CA

8:00 Registration, Coffee, Donuts and other culinary delights.

8:55 Welcome and Announcements

9:00 Show and Tell

Share your favorite demonstration or teaching tip. Since new teachers and section members will be at this meeting, veterans are encouraged to dust off some of your oldies but goodies. If you have handouts, please bring 75 copies. PASCO will present their latest products. Time limit is 5 minutes person, or you risk the dreaded gong.

9:45 “Transit Tracks: NASA’s Kepler Mission”

Edna DeVore

Using a model of a planet transiting a star, students learn what a transit is, under what conditions a transit may be seen, and what effects a planet’s size and distance from its star have on transit behavior. Students interpret graphs of brightness vs time to deduce characteristics of a star-planet system. Demonstration, hand-outs, and NASA Kepler Mission poster provided.

10:00 Invited Speaker: “The Search for Habitable Worlds”

Natalie Batalha

NASA’s Kepler Mission has begun its 3.5-year quest for habitable planets like Earth in our galaxy. Natalie will define habitability from the perspective of the Kepler science team and describe how and where the spacecraft will look for worlds reminiscent of our own. She will give an overview of what to expect in the coming years as we work to understand whether Earth-like planets in our galaxy are common or rare.

11:00 Keynote Speaker: Sy Liebergot; EECOM Mission Flight Controller for Apollo

This year is the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo program that culminated with landing on the moon. N Cal/Nev AAPT is pleased to commemorate mankind’s greatest adventures with a special appearance of Sy Liebergot.

Sy will speak about what it was like to be a Mission Flight Controller when a monster failure occurred during the Apollo 13 mission and landed squarely in his lap. He relates the general details of the explosion as they really happened.

Sy will also speak about Ethics in Engineering, using the real examples of the Apollo 1 pad fire disaster and the Shuttle Challenger and Columbia space disasters as subjects for this presentation. He describes how he and his fellow Apollo mission flight controllers approached their part in the successful lunar landings in an ethical manner. Sy uses real-life examples that convey in a way realistic and memorable enough to train engineers to deal with the heart-wrenching decisions some of them will have to make, particularly when they become managers. He examines how ethics (or the diminution of) played a role in the three tragedies of the U.S. space program: the Apollo 1 pad fire, the in-flight destruction of Shuttle Orbiters Challenger and Columbia.

Sy will be available for book signings after his talk.

12:30 Lunch at NASA Ames

Video replay of the LCROSS lunar impact from the Oct. 9 morning

1:30 Business Meeting

Look, only 30 minutes long!

2:00 Invited Talk: “Taking a Ride on the Wild Side: The Successful Stardust Sample Return Mission to Comet 81P/Wild 2″

Scott Sandford

In 2006, NASA’s STARDUST Mission successfully returned samples from Comet 81P/Wild 2 to the Earth for study. The spacecraft was launched in 1999 and on January 2, 2004 it made a close flyby (236 km) of the nucleus of Comet Wild 2 (pronounced “Vildt Two”). During the flyby the spacecraft collected samples of dust from the coma of the comet. These samples were returned to Earth on January 15, 2006 after which they receiving a preliminary six month examination to establish the basic nature of the returned samples. The samples were then turned over to the NASA Curatorial Office where they have since been available to the general worldwide scientific community for continued study.

Scott is one of the original Co-Investigators and Science Team members of the STARDUST mission and was on the team that recovered the Sample Return Capsule from the Utah desert. He also escorted the capsule to NASA-Johnson Space Center, assisted with the removal of the samples from the capsule, and led the Preliminary Examination Team responsible for studying the organic materials in the returned samples. Samples have confirmed some of the ideas we had about comets and the origin of our Solar System, and completely overturned others.

3:00 End of program

3:00 Canceled “Shooting the Moon: Precision Tests of General Relativity with APOLLO

Charles Hoyle

It has been nearly forty years since the first reflectors were placed on the lunar surface by the Apollo astronauts. Laser ranging to these mirrors provides high-precision tests of General Relativity, as well as a host of information about the lunar ephemeris. APOLLO (the Apache Point Observatory Lunar Laser-ranging Operation) recently obtained the first ranges with millimeter precision, representing an order-of-magnitude improvement over previous efforts. In the near future, this enhanced performance will provide unprecedented tests of the Strong Equivalence Principle, the best measure of the constancy of the gravitational constant, G, the most stringent limitations on predicted deviations of the gravitational inverse-square law, and information about the lunar environment. We discuss the techniques employed by APOLLO, initial results, and expected sensitivity.

Logistics

Registration

Fee is waived for first-time attendees and students! Everyone else pays only $20 — which includes lunch. A bargain at twice the price!

Registration can be completed on Saturday morning.

Lodging

Local hotels include (in no particular order):

or

Apollo 13 The Longest Hour

Reflections on the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo Program

Thursday, October 8, 2009 • 7:30PM

Flight Controller Sy Liebergot

Sy Liebergot, a former NASA flight controller, was on the job for some of the most memorable moments in space exploration, including the Apollo 13 fuel cell explosion.

Mr. Liebergot will be available for book signings before and after the talk.

www.nasa.gov

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

San Mateo Performing Arts Center • San Mateo, CA

506 N. Delaware Street, San Mateo, CA 94401 • Phone (650) 400-9425 • email pablo@laserpablo.com

Fall NCNAAPT conference: Call for Presentations

Call for Presentations

Our Fall Section Conference will be Saturday, October 10, 2009 at NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, CA

We solicit presentations of 15 minutes in length. Suitable topics include teaching ideas, research projects, laboratory techniques, novel demonstrations, computers and instruction. Please send an abstract of your presentation with title, your name and affiliation, AV and equipment requests and other requirements to the Program Chairperson, Paul Robinson, by email to pablo@laserpablo.com.

Novice presenters: Our Section conferences are a great place to “get your feet wet” if you’d like to present at a national conference later. We’ll shower you with praise and encourage you to share elsewhere.

Deadline for submission is Tuesday, September 15, 2009.

In the Footsteps of Galileo: A Hands-on Workshop on Astronomy

Sat, Sep. 12 and Sun, Sep. 13, 2009

Westin SFO Hotel, Millbrae, California (near the San Francisco Airport)

Part of the 120th Anniversary Meeting of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific

In this hands-on workshop, we will train educators to be “Galileo Ambassadors” for the International Year of Astronomy (2009). Teachers in grades 4 – 12 will learn how to do age-appropriate, inquiry-based activities in astronomy and physical science. After a brief introduction to Galileo’s life and work and the realms of astronomy, participants will explore:

1. A Private Universe: Student Reasoning and How to Help Students to Act Like Scientists
2. The Moons of Jupiter: Galileo’s Experiment Redone (and the Process of Science)
3. Understanding the Phases and Motions of the Moon
4. Making a Constellation Finder and Getting Oriented in the Night Sky
5. Measuring the Dark: Activities to Understand the Environmental Effects of Light Pollution
6. The Galileoscope: A Telescope for All Seasons and All Reasons
7. The Universe at Your Fingertips: Where to Find the Best Astronomy Activities in Print and on the Web

Participants will receive a free GalileoScope (a small telescope especially developed for easy public viewing during the International Year of Astronomy) and package of hands-on activities, background information, and resource guides that can be put to immediate use in  the classroom. No background in astronomy will be assumed; both new  and veteran teachers should gain new information and effective teaching techniques from the workshop.

Facilitators include:

• Andrew Fraknoi (Chair, Astronomy Dept, Foothill College and the 2007 California Professor of the Year)
• Dennis Schatz (VP, Pacific Science Center, Seattle; and the 2009 NSTA Faraday Award winner for science communication)
• Constance Walker (Nat’l Optical Astronomy Observatories and Coordinator, Globe at Night)
• Robert Sparks (Nat’l Optical Astronomy Observatories and Senior Trainer, Hands-on Optics Project)
• Suzanne Gurton (Educational Projects Director, Astronomical Society of the Pacific)

(Sunday afternoon, participants will join with other meeting attendees to hear a series of non-technical talks on the search for extra-terrestrial life, with the father of SETI, Dr. Frank Drake, award-winning science popularizer Seth Shostak, planetary protection scientist Margaret Race, and one of the chief scientists for the Kepler Mission, looking for Earths around other stars.)

Cost

$39.95 per day ($78.90 for the weekend)
1 semester unit of academic credit: $100 (optional)

Registration

To register, go to the meeting web site:
http://www.astrosociety.org/events/2009mtg/workshops.html
When you register, click on weekend registration and the first workshop under each day.