AAPT Section News, July 2013
—Page 7
The
Fall Conference
on November 17, 2012 from
8:30 AM to 12:00 PM and was hosted by Bill Leacock
at Mepham High School. The day started with breakfast,
followed by a representative from The Center for Children
and Technology speaking about a program to find science
teachers to create and evaluate professional development
modules for NASA’s Physics and Engineering Collection
of digital resources. Bill Leacock then took the stage to
talk about demonstrations in a wide variety of topics. The
emphasis was on showing demonstrations that can be use
readily available lab equipment. But the presentation also
appealed to veteran teachers when more unusual demos
where shown.
Rich Yngstrom stepped up next to participants how to
set up a bridge building program. Rich drew on his 15+
years of experience judging and coaching students for the
Brookhaven National Labs competition. Rich also came up
with the idea and provided the guidance for the Make and
Take that participants made next. Bill Lynch, our recording
secretary and website manager, scouted out the materials for
the pair of heavy wire demonstrators that teachers can use
to help their students understand the behavior of transverse
waves. The conference ended with a discussion of the
the newAP B Physics configuration led by Bill Leacock.
Our thirty participants left well fed, with a new piece of
demonstration equipment and some great new ideas for their
students.
Overall, our section had a successful year. We helped
promote the
Teslamania
demonstration festival organized
by Rich Gearns from Sachem High School at SUNY
Stonybrook in November. Many of our members shared
great demonstrations and got their students involved doing
demonstrations, too.
Monthly executive board meetings continue to be
amazing breakfasts because of the competitive spirit of our
ten faithful members who supply the brains and the brawn
for our activities.
—Tania Entwistle, Section Representative
Michigan Section
The fall meeting of MIAAPT took place October 6, 2012 and
was hosted by Hope College in Holland, Michigan. Almost
50 attendees from the high school, two-year college, and
four-year college communities were present as well as a few
students. The meeting was chaired by our President Jim Gell
(Plymouth High School) and coordinated by our 1st Vice
President Scott Cochran (Kirtland Community College).
The keynote address at the meeting was delivered by
Dr. Don Lincoln, Senior Physicist at the Fermi National
Accelerator Laboratory. Dr. Lincoln collaborates with
researchers from both the Tevatron and from the CERN Large
Hadron Collider in Switzerland. He is a member of the team
that discovered the Top Quark and now what is likely to be the
Higgs Boson.
In addition to the excellent talk about the Higgs Boson by
Dr. Lincoln, there also were many interesting presentations
during the morning session. These included presentations
by Chris Pearson and Alan Grafe both from the University
of Michigan – Flint discussing the transition that was
implemented from traditional lecture style classes to a
studio format. Steve Dickie and Serge Danielson-Francois
from Divine Child High School presented how they are
implementing physics journal articles into their current Honors
Physics Seminar class.
Based on a survey done by MIAAPT about two years ago,
a new session format was tried with great success in which
there were roundtable discussions among different groups.
For ninety minutes, groups were broken down by four-year
college, two-year college, and high school faculty discussing
issues of importance to that group. The discussions were
vigorous among the attendees. When we reconvened before
lunch, it was decided that perhaps a different structure could
be used in the next roundtable simply because, for example,
ideas that came up in the four-year college group could have
used input and perspective from the other groups. We plan to
hold more of these at future meetings.
After lunch, the 2012 Distinguished Service Award for
Michigan, provided by Arbor Scientific, was presented to
Dr. Drew Isola for his service to the physics and science
community in Michigan. Drew has presented numerous
workshops for teachers at MIAAPT, MSTA, APS, and AAPT
meetings. He also has served on several Michigan Department
of Education’s Science Content committees and was in the
executive office chain of MIAAPT, serving as president
during the 2009-2010 school year. He teaches AP Physics, AP
Calculus, Algebra, Geometry, and Personal Finance at Allegan
High School.
Finally, the meeting closed with its workshops. Dr. Don
Lincoln presented a workshop titled “What a kid needs to
do to become a researcher” which included a good deal of
interaction through informal conversation and question and
answer. Mandi Frantti from Munising Middle/High School
also gave a workshop titled “Active Galaxies: What is All This
Energy?” She presented activities suitable to a high school
physics or astronomy class related to conclusions made from
current research in astrophysics.
The next Michigan meeting will take place April 20th at
Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn, Michigan. We
hope to see everyone there.
The Fall 2012 and Winter 2013 MIAAPT newsletters are
online at
—Michael Faleski, Section Representative
