British Columbia Section News
British Columbia Section Report
Spring Meeting (2007)
The British Columbia Association of Physics Teachers held their AGM and a Professional Development Day on May 5, 2007 at Simon Fraser University's Surrey campus, located in Surrey, BC, Canada.
Participants had the opportunity to try out SFU's Studio Physics in two workshops presented by Neil Averding and Sarah Johnson (both teachers at Simon Fraser University). Studio Physics is a class based on the Workshop Physics model by Laws et.al. Students learn by doing hands-on activities, some of which employ computer interfaces and analysis. Other activities included a presentation by Rachel Moll (graduate student in Science Education at the University of British Columia) on Complexity Science and Physics Teaching & Learning and an informal discussion lead by Michael Coombes (physics instructor at Kwantlen University College) on common misconceptions demonstrated by first-year physics students. The highlight of the workshop was a presentation by Professor Carl Wieman (University of Colorado and University of British Columbia; 2001 Physics Nobel Laureate) on his research in Physics Education, specifically research by his PhET team on the development of quality computer simulations and their effective use to support learning.
At the beginning of the meeting, members of the BCAPT conducted an election to choose their Executive Board members for the next year. At the end of the meeting, the organizers conducted a raffle for exciting door prizes: physics teaching materials, textbooks, and much more.
PhET web site: http://phet.colorado.edu/web-pages/index.html
Submitted by Marina Milner-Bolotin
Section Representative
(Posted 5/11/07)
Fall Meeting (2006)
BC High Energy Science Pro-D Day:
On October 20th 2006, the British Columbia Section of the AAPT, together with the BC Science Teachers Association and TRIUMF (Canada’s largest meson accelerator), organized a province-wide Professional Development Day for BC science teachers. The theme for the day was High-Energy Physics. Dr. Stan Yen from TRIUMF began the meeting by giving an overview of the research currently conducted at TRIUMF, including its medical applications. Emeritus - John D’Auria from Simon Fraser University gave an exciting talk about the origins of chemical elements. Dr. D'Auria’s talk generated such a great interest that it was followed by a great number of questions from the teachers. After the plenary talks, the teachers could choose three (out of six) hands-on workshops led by BC AAPT leaders together with the scientists from TRIUMF, UBC, and SFU. At the end of the day, TRIUMF scientists offered a tour of the facility as well as shared educational materials (two DVDs) developed by TRIUMF outreach coordinators Drs. Stan Yen and Macello Pavan to help teachers bring the findings of current research done in Canada and in the world to their students.
As the provincial science curriculum is currently undergoing significant changes, many teachers who formerly taught life sciences might need to teach some physics in grades 9 and 10. As a result, such a professional event was a great opportunity for them to get prepared for these changes. More than 80 science teachers decided to make use of this exciting opportunity and based on their feedback they really enjoyed it.
Organizing committee: Mike Coombes, Paul Cheng, Phillip Freeman, Sarah Johnson, Phillip Jones, Don Mattheson, Marina Milner, Rachel Moll, Marcello Pavan, Dan Phelps, Tak Sato, Stan Yen.
Submitted by Marina Milner-Bolotin
Section Representative
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