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.

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

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.

NCNAAPT fall meeting/workshop at NASA Ames, October 10, 2009

Mark your calendars

The fall NCNAPT meeting/workshops will be held at NASA Ames Research Center on October 10th, 2009.

Keynote speaker will be Sy Liebergot, EECOM from Apollo 13.

More details will be posted soon, including registration links, call for presentations, etc.

AAPT Summer Meeting registration deadline extended to July 6th.

There’s never been a better time to enhance your professional career…

Join us in Ann Arbor for cutting-edge teaching methods and physics research, and cost effective connections to your colleagues in the physics community.  This meeting promises to help you find ideas and inspiration to take back to your classroom. http://www.aapt.org/Events/sm2009/registration.cfm.

Here are just a few of the highlighted events :

• Noteworthy speakers include Robert A. Millikan Medal winner Arthur Eisenkraft, Klopsteg  Memorial Awardee Lee Smolin, and AIP’s Andrew W. Gemant Awardee John S. Rigden.
• Don’t miss David Saltzberg discuss his time served as physics consultant for the popular television situation-comedy  “The Big Bang Theory.”
• Be sure to sign-up for our Detroit City Tour with a stop at the Motown Historical Museum, and our Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village Tour.

The 2009 AAPT Summer Meeting is just a couple weeks away and we have extended the registration deadline to Monday, July 6th!

Visit http://www.aapt.org/Events/sm2009/index.cfm regularly for the most current updates.

We hope to see you there.

Spring 2009 Conference attendance

We’re creating a map of those who attended the conference. It will be updated below shortly.
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Contributed Papers, Spring 2009 Conference

The following papers were presented at the conference.

We hope to have links to author’s web resources soon.

What is an electron?

Richard Kidd, Diablo Valley College (retired), Pleasant Hill, CA kiddri@sonoma.edu
A student once asked me this question and appeared very dissatisfied when I replied that we have many precise
measurements of its properties but no knowledge as to the electron’s structure, leading it to be often considered to be a point
particle. Recently, my interest in the question was rekindled by a plausible suggestion as to electron structure in a science fiction
story. I calculated its feasibility along with those of some historical models, including several suggested by A. H. Compton, in terms
of what we do know.

A Proof of the Maximal Efficiency of the Carnot Cycle

Duygu Demirlioğlu, Holy Names University, Oakland, CA duygu@hnu.edu
When discussing heat engines, standard physics textbooks state that the most efficient cycle operating between two reservoirs at fixed temperature is the Carnot cycle. On a PV diagram the Carnot cycle appears to be a peculiar figure bounded by two isotherms and two adiabats. How do we show students that this cycle is indeed the most efficient one? How do we prove Carnot’s theorem in an elementary course? We will present a simple, visually elegant proof, a transformation of the oddly shaped Carnot cycle into a simple geometric figure, and a calculation of the efficiency of the cycle by essentially reading it off a diagram.

Orbiting Satellites and Elevators Through the Center of Earth

Paul Robinson, San Mateo High School, San Mateo, CA laserpablo.com
Suppose you could bore a tunnel through the center of the earth. Further suppose you could pump all the air out of this tunnel to eliminate air friction. What would happen if you devised an elevator that dropped all the through to the other side? This would be one heck of ride–such an elevator would be like an 8,000-mile Drop Zone at Great America! How long would it take for you to reach the other side of the earth? How long would a round trip be? And how fast would you end up going at the center of the earth? It turns out the round trip time of the elevator is exactly the same time it takes a satellite to orbit the earth—about 90 minutes! This means it would take the elevator 45 minutes to reach the other side of the earth—an impressive feat considering it required no fuel! Why is the time (or period) of the elevator the same as an orbiting satellite? The solution to this problem makes an excellent review problem for either introductory college or AP students.

Using YouTube Video in the Classroom

CJ Chretien, Leadership Public Schools, Richmond, CA groovitude@gmail.com
YouTube can be a great, and free, educational tool for the classroom as well as for your own professional development. I will give you some ideas of how you can use YouTube videos in your classroom as well as how to download YouTube videos since it is blocked at many schools. Lastly I will introduce the new NCNAAPT YouTube channel, which is a great way to share teaching ideas within our community: www.youtube.com/user/ncnaapt

IceCube, Bringing Cutting-Edge Science into the Classroom

Casey O’Hara, Carlmont High School, Belmont, CA schmasey@stanfordalumni.org
In December-January of 2009-2010, I will be going to the South Pole to work with researchers from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, in conjunction with PolarTREC and the Knowles Science Teaching Foundation (KSTF). The IceCube telescope is the largest research project ever attempted in Antarctica, being built to map out the universe by detecting high-energy neutrinos and cosmic rays. I will be traveling as a PolarTREC teacher to the South Pole in December of 2009 to help work on the IceCube project, while working with five other KSTF Teaching Fellows to bring the IceCube project into our classrooms by following the expedition via an online journal and webinars. This collaboration is being used as a means of exciting students about current polar research and will allow students insight into what “real” scientists do. This presentation will focus on an overview of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, and the nature of collaboration between IceCube, PolarTREC, and the Knowles Science Teaching Foundation.

One Year With a $1000 High-Speed Video Camera

Dean Baird, Rio Americano High School, Sacramento, CA dean@phyz.org
The Casio EX-F1 is a digital still camera with first-in-its-class high-speed video capabilities. In addition to being able to capture full-resolution still images at 60 frames per second, it can capture video at 300, 600, and even 1200 fps. Since the standard video playback rate is 30 fps, the EX-F1 can “slow down” events to 1/10th, 1/20th, or 1/40th of their natural speed. For $1000, you can be Harold Edgerton! One year later, no other consumer camera competes with the EX-F1 for high-speed captures. I’ll show some clips and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of this breakthrough camera.

Concept Mapping Software in a High School Physics Class

Lee Trampleasure, Carondelet High School, Concord, CA lee@trampleasure.net
Concept maps, or graphic organizers, are a means to organize concepts to form a visual representation of the relationships between these concepts. Research shows that some students gain a better understanding by ‘mapping’ concepts in a spatial manner rather than the more traditional outline format. In my academically-diverse high school physics class, many students struggle to grasp the relationships between the words we use. I will present the software CmapTools, examples of concept maps created by my students (including handdrawn maps), and results of a survey of these students on their perception of the value of CmapTools. CmapTools is free software that runs on Windows, Macs, and Linux. It is both robust and easy to learn. CmapTools was developed by the Institute for Machine and Human Cognition (of which I am not affiliated). IMHC also provides CmapServer, a free program that allows people to share maps over the internet.

Teaching Physics with Multi-Station Activities, by Charles Hunt, American River College

Charles presented several stations for Newton’s Laws of Motion. His goal is to have his students spend more time with their hands on activities, and less time listening to lectures. He generally introduces the activities of the day with a mini lecture, then students have time to work the activities.

He does some preparation/manipulation of the apparatus to ensure students get the desired results.

Some of his activities/demos include:

• A great demo he uses is a “fake rock” made of foam and painted black that he can throw to students and be surprised by how light it is.
• Nice heavy chain that students try to pull horizontal in a tug of war.
• Doppler effect with the flexible tube twirled overhead.

Hand outs were provided, and everyone had time to get their “hands on” the activities.

Charles always leaves a 5-10 minutes at the end to review what students were expected to see at each station. Tape down the station numbers or they will migrate!

Show and Tell Spring 2009

Here’s a short summary of presentations at the March 28th Spring 2009 meeting’s Show and Tell. Photos will be linked from here shortly.

• Chuck Hunt, American River College
  • Intro to conservation laws demo. Five M&Ms in a small brown bag. How many times did the red one hit the green one? How many M&Ms are in the bag? Checked it by pulling them out. He pulls out six. How come? Shows the empty bag and places six in the bag. Shakes them up. Hides at the back of the room, then is seen chewing. How many in the bag? Counts out five. Where did the sixth go? “You ate it.” How do you know this? Not just that I was chewing, but that it was not in the bag. Conservation of M&Ms!
• Claudia, Gunn High School, Palo Alto
  • Just a “tell.” Energy is on the forefront of public discussions, and physics sort of “owns” physics. But we’re not teaching about energy careers as requiring a physics background. This is our moment! The stimulus bill has created money available for energy topics. Claudia has made some initial contacts with professors at Stanford and with some energy companies, and they are quite excited about having high school teachers work on a venture to develop an “energy curriculum” for use in high schools. Energy Questionnaire NCNAAPT
• Doug, West Valley College
  • Solar/Lunar Aerobics. Reaching and stretching to show the motion of sun and moon. Turning his body with one hand as the sun and the other as the moon, holding the angle between the two consistent. Usually have everyone stand up.
• Bree Dreyfuss, Amador Valley HS
  • Doesn’t have an easily accessible elevator, so has a hanging wood frame to represent an elevator. Puts a Tigger (stuffed animal) in the pan of a small food elevator. Pulls the elevator up and down and students can see the food scale change depending on the acceleration of the “elevator.” Uses the “Travel food scale” from Bed Bath and Beyond $5.
• Don Rathjen, Exploratorium
  • Spring toy that can pop up after the suction cup releases. Has a hand out that describes forces, work, and energy involved. (25 cents a piece from Oriental Trading Company, cheap enough that the kids can take them home. High failure rate, however, so be ready to apply some petroleum jelly to the suction cup.)
• Ann Hanks, PASCO
  • Electrostatics toy. Very light item from
  • Clear acrylic tube with a laser shined into it shows internal reflection.
  • Huge (~2m diameter) white balloon. Lots of inertia. Bernouli effect can be demonstrated as dragging the balloon along. Edmunds Scientific.
• Chris
  • Speaker building project, Exploratorium has the design. Tall box that allows students to experience resonance frequencies in the box. Pull the speaker out and you don’t get much bass, but putting it in the box you suddenly hear the bass much louder. Can be used by students for iPod speakers, some students have come back from college and asked for the plans because “everyone in the dorm wants one.”
• Carl R, TOPS
  • Works with an elementary school to help the teachers there. Electrostatics is in the 4th grade California curriculum. Convex mirror makes a nice bearing, placing concave side up, then balance a long rods on the mirror/watch glass. Charge up an object and hold it next to the long rod and it will rotate towards it. A PVC pipe balance will then allow you to charge up the pipe and create attraction or repulsion depending on the charge of the object you place next to it.
• Dean Baird
  • Skinny fish tank with a white background (from Arbor Scientific). Don’t see the laser beam in the water. Mop and Glow is a good scattering agent (Pine Sol also works, pick your favorite). The water is still fairly clear, but then the laser is quite visible in the tank. Arbor’s model includes a clear rod that will allow you to shine the laser through the wand (horizontally, not lengthwise) which creates a spreading light pattern which will allow you to show reflection and refraction inside the water as it spreads out onto the white background. You can also hold a diffraction grating against the end and see the patterns in the water. If you add lots of Mop and Glow, you can show scattering of light from a regular flashlight.
• Bill Papke, retired
  • GPF: gallons per flush on toilets and urinals. Also LPF.
  • Stop by the Frys in Roseville, it’s the best decorated Frys with all sorts of train design integrated into it.
• Bernard Cleyet, retired
  • Glass coffee table is now his lab bench at home.
  • Carl provided a handout for Pablo’s projectile motion demonstration at the last meeting (horizontally moving marker sliding off a table, and the rotation of the marker as it moves through it’s parabolic path).
• David Kagan, CSU Chico
  • CD. Color transparencies with waves on them. Pinned down at the top. The Physics Teacher has a template for it this month.
• Eric Ayars, CSU Chico
  • Bad pun: Pear cut in two, with equal and opposite. The solid one he found had a solid metal chunk in the middle, so be careful when you saw.
• Tom Woodsnam
  • USBsell.com. (sorry, I missed what his
  • Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air. A great book to read.
• Lee Trampleasure, NCNAAPT web site
  • If you’re here, you see what Lee presented!
• Clarence Barken
  • Physics Day. Cedar Fair bought Great America. Their new policy is that you can’t use electronic data collection equipment at parks. But we have an exception for Physics Day at Great America in Sunnyvale. However, the vests that hold the gear can no longer be used. Fanny packs, etc. can be used, as long as you comply with their other regulations. Clarence recommends tethers and fanny packs. Some parents have been told otherwise.
• Extras from others: A one newton foam apple, available from Scientific Innovations. The Quarter Pounder at McDonalds is actually a Newton Burger if you weigh it. Also, there is a cereal in England called Vector, which has “directions” on the side and comes in different “magnitudes.”
• Pablo
  • Pablo’s web site has lots of new videos posted (laserpablo.com). Check them out. He also recommends the DVD Understanding Car Crashes, It’s Basic Physics. They have a sequel: When Physics Meets Biology. Exploratorium sells them.