In their Season Premiere the Mythbusters will take on the infamous projectile problem of a dropped vs shot bullet. While teaching projectiles, many teachers use an example of shooting a bullet horizontally and dropping one next to it at the same time. While students agree that this may hold true for slow projectiles, they often don’t believe that that gravity would act on something moving really fast, like a bullet. On their season premiere tonight, 9pm PST, the Mythbusters will be testing this out in “Knock Your Socks Off.”
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
Sponsored by the Northern California and Nevada American Association of Physics Teachers, NASA Lunar Science Institute, and NASA Ames Research InstituteIn 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
One unit of Academic Credit available through San Francisco State U.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:
- A Private Universe: Student Reasoning and How to Help Students to Act Like Scientists
- The Moons of Jupiter: Galileo’s Experiment Redone (and the Process of Science)
- Understanding the Phases and Motions of the Moon
- Making a Constellation Finder and Getting Oriented in the Night Sky
- Measuring the Dark: Activities to Understand the Environmental Effects of Light Pollution
- The Galileoscope: A Telescope for All Seasons and All Reasons
- 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.
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.
Using Google Maps to show wave refraction in water
Physics educators have used photos of natural and man-made breakwaters to show refraction for probably as long as we’ve had photography. But now online mapping web sites (Google, Yahoo. etc.) allow you to find locations near you to make the images more tangible to your students. Oceans and bays are full of images of refraction, but you may also find diffraction patterns in a large lake.
Below is an example from a breakwater in Berkeley, CA, in the San Francisco Bay
View Larger Map
Check water bodies around your institution to find examples you can use with your students. Most mapping sites allow you to save landmarks in a “My maps” section, so once you find a good location, you can save it, then pull it up from a list when you need to show it in class.
One warning: Map sites update their satellite photographs every so often (as the USGS releases newer ones), so check your location before your lecture to make sure your pattern is still there!