The American Association of Physics Teachers, Northern California/Nevada Section
July 15-16, 2009, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
Educator Institute
Like tossing yo-yos? Ever wanted to unravel the mystery of the drinking bird? Then the Toy Box Physics video contest is for you. Take any toy you want and use it to somehow express a physics concept. Bounce, spin, jump and splash your way into physics history. The winner will receive a trophy lovingly made by APS staff from some of our favorite physics toys as well as $1,000 cash. All entries must be received by May 26th at midnight.
AAPT and APS give special awards for the top physics projects at the International Science and Engineering Fair each year. This year ISEF is being held May 10-15 in Reno. This is an opportunity for the Northern California-Nevada section to assist by recruiting judges to take part in this event.
Typically we try to get 3 judges and we would like representation from AAPT and APS. I will need their names and contact information by April 21. Can you assist with this? I will also ask Ted Hodapp at APS for help in locating 1 or 2 APS members.
Please send your name and/or nomination ASAP to Paul Robinson at laserpablo@aol.com.
Dear Educator,
Thank you to those of you who have already shared the news about our free summer physics camps for students and teachers at Canada’s Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.
Application deadlines are fast approaching:
If you have not already done so, we hope you will share this information with other students and teachers by:
What teachers to 2008 Einstein Plus say about their experience at Perimeter:
What past students to ISSYP say about their experience at Perimeter:
Additional information is available online at www.perimeterinstitute.ca.
If you have any questions, please contact:
Julie Taylor
jtaylor@perimeterinstitute.ca (519) 569-7600 ext. 5080
We look forward to receiving applications from your school.
Best Regards,
Perimeter Institute Outreach Team
We hope to have links to author’s web resources soon.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.