July 26–30, 2014
71
Monday afternoon
Sustainability, reliability, quality of life, affordability, local self-reliance and
technological empowerment are all themes that come to mind when think-
ing about the electric energy sector and how it will evolve in coming de-
cades. Minnesota Power serves the largest industrial customers in the state
and also serves most of the communities across northeastern and north
central Minnesota. In 2005, the company served those customers with a
generation fleet that was 95% coal and 5% renewable. Today, it serves those
customers with a 25% renewable resource mix and is headed for 1/3 of its
capacity being renewable within a decade. This presentation will focus on
how traditional utility business models are evolving and what challenges
—and opportunities— lie ahead for utilities and their customers as more
sustainable and more distributed resources are added to the power grid.
CF02:
4:30-5 p.m. Electric Utility Resource Planning in Today’s
Environment
Invited – Brian H. Draxten, Otter Tail Power Company, 215 S. Cascade St.,
Fergus Falls, MN 56538;
Resource planning for an electric utility used to be easy: Give custom-
ers all the electricity they want, when they want it, at the lowest possible
price. Today, utilities need to balance the interests of rate impact, system
reliability, environmental concerns, regulatory and legislative policy, and
company shareholders. Least-Cost Planning has now become Public Policy
Planning. How does a utility balance keeping the lights on (system reli-
ability) with all of the other considerations above when making genera-
tion resource decisions? These decisions involve not only new generation
sources but decisions on what to do with existing generation sources as
well: Traditional dispatchable generation (nuclear, coal, and natural gas)
vs. intermittent renewable sources (wind, solar, and biomass) vs. energy
efficiency and demand-side management. Diversity is the key.
CF03:
5-5:30 p.m. Energy, Environment, and Economics of the
Electric Car
Invited – Richard E. Flarend, Penn State Altoona, 3000 Ivyside Park, Altoona,
PA 16601
After just three years of sales, more than twice as many electric plug-in ve-
hicles have been sold compared to the first three years of hybrid vehicles. If
this trend continues, even a small college may have dozens of electric cars
requiring a campus public charging infrastructure. The economics of the
electric car will be presented showing that they are the least costly vehicles
to own and have lower emissions than any other form of transportation
even when the generation of electricity is considered. Installation require-
ments, economics, and regulatory concerns of public charging stations will
also be presented. Due to the “limited” driving range and charging time,
electric vehicles may not be for everyone. Learn what real-world single-
charge and daily driving ranges can be expected from an electric vehicle as
well as the effects of extreme temperature.
Session CG: Translating Teachers’
Research Experience into Class-
room Practice
Location: STSS 412
Sponsor: Committee on Teacher Preparation
Date: Monday, July 28
Time: 4–5:50 p.m.
Presider: Dimitri Dounas-Frazer
CG01:
4-4:30 p.m. Real World Practices in a High School
Classroom
Invited – Jamie Vargas, 5375 E Tower Ave., Fresno, CA 93725;
The idea of “those who can do; and those who can’t teach” is a common
saying in the general public, but what if you could “do” and teach at the
same time? As an early career teacher I have had the opportunity to not
only do science but also to teach students how science is done in the “real
world.” In this talk I will provide a brief description of my summer research
experience at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory through the STEM Teach-
er and Researcher (STAR) Program. I will also provide some examples on
how this experience can be implemented into classroom practice under the
guidance of the Next Generation Science Standards.
CG02:
4:30-5 p.m. Design and Implementation of Practice-
centered Physics Courses with The Compass Project
Invited – Ryan Olf,* University of California, Berkeley, 366 Le Conte Hall,
Berkeley, CA 94720-7300;
Derrek Coleman, University of California, Berkeley
The Next Generation Science Standards establish Science Practices as the
context in which students learn Core Ideas and Crosscutting Concepts,
claiming, “students cannot fully understand scientific and engineering
ideas without engaging in the practices of inquiry and the discourses by
which such ideas are developed and refined.’’ This interplay of science
practice and content knowledge may seem foreign to individuals whose ex-
perience learning science has centered primarily around classrooms, but to
science researchers it is undeniable. In this talk, we discuss how the process
by which researchers approach new problems can inform the design and
implementation of student learning in the classroom, with emphasis on
examples from courses developed by The Compass Project at UC Berkeley
for freshman and transfer students. In addition to serving students intel-
lectually, The Compass Project’s practice-centered courses help its students
develop a supportive community, confidence, curiosity, and connections---
key ingredients for long-term success in science.
*Sponsored by The Compass Project and the College of Letters & Science, University
of California, Berkeley
CG03:
5-5:30 p.m. Preparing Students for Authentic Research
Experiences Through Laboratory Courses
Invited – Heather Lewandowski, JILA CB 440, Boulder, CO 80309;
Preparing undergraduate physics majors for future careers in experimental
science is one of the main goals of our current physics education system. At
the University of Colorado, we have been working to transform our upper-
division laboratory courses to better prepare students for future under-
graduate, industrial, or graduate experimental work. Through this process,
we have developed learning goals, curricular materials, and assessments for
two upper-division lab courses. The transformation process and measured
outcomes will be presented.
CG04:
5:30-5:40 p.m. Lab Notebooks: Adapting a Researcher’s
Approach for the Classroom
Contributed – Kathryn Schaffer, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 112 S.
Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60603;
Many experimental physicists use lab notebooks as a tool for scientific
reasoning, and not always in ways that resemble the formal documenta-
tion and analysis emphasized in many lab classes. When designing an
inquiry-based course on “Waves” for a non-science audience, I reflected on
the role that narrative lab notebooks play in my own research as a tool for
“figuring things out” through writing, sketching, and questioning. In the
Waves course I am experimenting with anchoring student inquiry and class
discussion in lab notebook work that is modeled on a similar approach.
I will present the rubric I am currently using to assess student notebooks
and discuss some of my successes and current challenges.
CG05:
5:40-5:50 p.m. Measuring Musical Consonance and
Dissonance
Contributed – Michael C. LoPresto, Henry Ford Community College, Dear-
born, MI 48128;
A brief overview of some research on quantifying the sensations of musical
consonance and dissonance and comparing it to the judgment of humans
subjects and a description of several classroom and laboratory activities on
the subject based the research.
