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Portland
Monday afternoon
standards covered in the NGSS. Working closely with an undergradu-
ate engineering student and a CMU faculty member, the preservice and
in-service teachers developed a plan to create a robot with the capability of
autonomously sorting glass, plastic, aluminum, and tin recyclables. Lego
Mindstorms NXT 2.0 were used as the computer and sensing devices for
the project. Extensive fabrication and revision were required to create the
final waste sorter. The principles of engineering research to be incorporated
in a 7-12 grade classroom include research, development, fabrication, and
prototyping elements.
BC04:
5:10-5:20 p.m. Designing a Model Rocket to Deliver
Air Quality Sensors
Contributed – Kathleen Melious, T Wingate Andrews High School, 1900 Cana
Road, Mocksville, NC 27028;
James P. Healy, UNCG
Shan Faizi, Kyle Payton, Thomas Lyons, Blake Compton, T Wingate Andrews
High School
In 2013 the EPA estimates that it will spend close to $1 billion on projects
related to improving the air quality of the United States.
1
While the air
quality across a community is easily monitored at ground level, crucial data
about the health of an area’s atmosphere can be obtained by monitoring
conditions at low altitudes (100-800 meters) across a community.
2
The goal
of our project is to construct a delivery system for air quality sensors from
commonly available amateur rocketry supplies. The delivery system must
be reliable in delivering the payload to a constant and reproducible altitude
as well as allowing for safe and reliable recovery of the system after each
flight.
1. FY 2013 - EPA Budget in Brief,
2. Campaign to diagnose air quality concludes in California,
news/870 Blake Compton T Wingate ANdrews High School
BC05:
5:20-5:30 p.m. Ice Investigations for Physics Students
– A Post AP-Exam Opportunity
Contributed – Mark T. Buchli,* Liberty High School, 16655 SE 136th St.,
Renton, WA 98059;
How can a year of physics instruction be topped? Take those bright
students into a complex research setting and see what they can do. Ice
Investigations for Physics Students challenges AP physics students in two
areas: a) the physics of sea ice (experiments in thermodynamics & light
transmission) and b) working with Arctic Sea Ice data in predicting and
analyzing spatial and temporal trends in sea ice extent. Experiments will
be described, resources will be presented, and design possibilities will be
discussed in an engaging format. This project is supported by a National
Science Foundation grant through the Polar Science Center at the Applied
Physics Lab - University of Washington.
*Sponsored by Tom Haff
BC06:
5:30-5:40 p.m. Promote the “E” in STEM: Renewable
Energy Connect Engineering Research*
Contributed – Lisa L. Grable, NC State University, 749 Powell Drive, Raleigh,
NC 27606;
Power-related activities fromThe Science House, NC State University
(in partnership with the NSF FREEDM Systems Center) will be pre-
sented. Learn techniques for middle and high school hands on wind,
solar, capacitors, and more! Renewable energy activities will be presented
as eight crosscutting concept stations. The activities are appropriate for
middle or high school and include endothermic reaction; batteries, bulbs,
and capacitors; solar panel; wind turbine; fruit battery and more. The
activities connect to the electrical engineering research being done by the
FREEDM Systems Center (Future Renewable Electric Energy Delivery and
Management). The activities are based in inquiry (scientific and engineer-
ing practices) and include data collection and analysis. They are intended
to introduce students to the renewable energy work of power engineers.
)
*Project is supported in part by NSF Award #EEC-0812121.
Session BD: Panel – Massively Open
Online Courses
Location: Broadway III/IV
Sponsor: Committee on Educational Technologies
Date: Monday, July 15
Time: 4–6 p.m.
Presider: Danny Caballero
Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are a new part of the
21st century educational landscape. MOOCs provide free access to
instruction in many areas (including physics) and have been her-
alded as a major positive change in higher education. However,
many MOOCs employ ineffective and impersonal instructional
methods (e.g., lecture) and have been written off as just another
educational fad. As we begin to make sense of these new environ-
ments, we must discuss how to incorporate educational best prac-
tices into MOOC instruction and investigate the outcomes of such
instruction. In this panel discussion, Dave Pritchard and Michael
Schatz will discuss the design of two different introductory physics
MOOCs and present preliminary data on how students par-
ticipate and succeed in these new online learning environments.
Each speaker will present for 30 minutes and a one-hour open
discussion will follow. This session will be broadcast online as part
of AAPT’s alternative access initiative.
BD01:
4-6 p.m. MIT Open Online Physics Courses Are
Research Goldmines
1
Panel – David E. Pritchard, MIT, Room 26-241, 77 Mass. Ave., Cambridge,
MA 02140;
Daniel Seaton, Yoav Bergner, Colin Fredericks, Gerd Kortemeyer, MIT
MOOCs offer research opportunities based on data mining from their
time-stamped log of everything students do in a complete learning
environment. We report on student distribution of time on various tasks,
fraction of each resource used, and particularly on e-text usage. e-text
usage depends dramatically on course structure, but is similar for OOCs,
distance courses at MSU, and blended courses at MSU and MIT. Data
will be drawn from ~14 MSU physics courses on LONCAPA.org, ~8 MIT
courses on edX, and the 2 RELATE administrations of Mechanics ReView
/), an open enrollment course that
uses the MAPS Pedagogy
2
to develop both more expert-like organization
of core mechanics knowledge and more systematic problem solving skills.
ReView includes hundreds of assessment questions, many based on results
from physics education research, most of them available on LON-CAPA.
The previous and current summer versions of ReView are aimed at practic-
ing teachers and offer CEUs.
1. We acknowledge support from NSF and MIT, and important help on the course
from Andrew Pawl, Saif Rayyan, and Raluca Teodorescu.
2. AIP Conf. Proc. 1179, pp. 51-54 (2009).
BD02:
4-6 p.m. An Introductory Physics MOOC with a Lab
Panel – Michael F. Schatz, Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Phys-
ics, Atlanta, GA 30332;
Numerous Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have been devised for
advanced/upper level coursework; by contrast, relatively few MOOCs have,
to date, focused on introductory courses. We describe a Gates Foundation
supported effort to develop a college-level introductory physics course that
will offer bona fide laboratory experiences that are arguably superior to
experiences in laboratories for typical large lecture introductory physics
courses. The course will be offered on Coursera in summer 2013.
