AAPT Section News, July 2013
—Page 9
The North Carolina Section Business Meeting was held
Friday Night.
Our Spring 2013 Meeting is scheduled for April 19-20
co-hosted by North Carolina State (Friday) and Meredith
College (Saturday).
—Mario Belloni, Section Representative
North Dakota Section
The North Dakota section of the American Association of
Physics Teachers met on 23 Feb 2013 in Bismarck, ND, on
the Bismarck State College (BSC) campus. The meeting was
held in conjunction with the North Dakota Science Teachers
Association’s annual meeting which was held on the same
site. The meeting opened with section business and election of
officers. The business meeting was followed by discussion and
sharing of demonstrations and teaching ideas.
ND Section Officers for 2013-14
Larry Cook
President
Bismarck High School
Tony Musumba
Vice President
Bismarck State College
Ila La Chapelle
Secretary
Wahalla
Rick Henry
Treasurer
Larimore High School
rick.henry@sendit.nodakedu .
Donald L. Hoff
Section Representative
Valley City State University
—Donald Hoff, Section Representative
Northern California/Nevada Section
In 2012, our section ventured to the Sierra Nevada Mountains
for both meetings. Our spring meeting in South Lake Tahoe
was followed by a lower elevation fall meeting in Rocklin in
the foothills.
Spring Meeting, April 20-21, Lake Tahoe Community
College, South Lake Tahoe, CA
About 30 members attended our fall meeting. Our keynote
speaker, Dr. David Bennum (U Nevada, Reno), spoke about
his “Physics on the Road” program which brings buses to
students in grades 2-8, sparking their interest in physics. In our
Share and Tell session, members showed off their best demos
and lesson plans. In the afternoon, we elected our officers and
heard members’ presentations on Fathom in the Classroom,
Review Strategies, “The Beneficial Application of Stupidity
in Inquiry,” NASAResearch Opportunities for Community
College Students, and “Remediation that does not Suck.”
This was our first meeting where we experimented with
online registration through our website. Many members
registered online, helping us to estimate attendance in advance.
Fall Meeting, November 2-3, Sierra College, Rocklin, CA
For our fall meeting, we went full-boar with online
registration. While we still offered registration at the meeting,
most members opted to register online, in advance.
About 80 members attended our meeting in the beautiful
Sierra Nevada foothills. Sierra College through open the doors
for us, providing a planetarium show on Friday evening, and a
tour of their natural history museum.
With the SF Giants’World Series victory in our short-term
memories, two members provided a talk on the Physics of
Baseball—including analysis of the latest ultra-high speed/
slow motion film of the World Series.
Dr. David J. Webb (UC Davis) presented a talk entitled
“Prior Understanding of Physical Concepts Improves
Students’ Problem Solving Skills,” in which he presented
research showing a connection between improved problem
solving skills when the first 60% of the quarter was used for
largely conceptual presentations of physics concepts, and the
final 40% introducing and focusing on algebraic problem
solving.
At lunch at this meeting we experimented with focused
“Table Talk” discussions, where lunch-goers gathered at tables
where the discussion focused on one topic, from “physics
first” to AP to the Next Generation Science Standards. Some
tables focused better than others, but everyone enjoyed the
food and the company.
More details of any of our meetings can be found on our
website: ncnaapt.org
—Lee Trampleasure, Section Representative
