Bulletin of the American Physical Society
50th Annual Meeting of the Division of Plasma Physics
Volume 53, Number 14
Monday–Friday, November 17–21, 2008; Dallas, Texas
Session QI2: Education and Outreach |
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Chair: Charles Greenfield, General Atomics Room: Landmark B |
Wednesday, November 19, 2008 3:00PM - 3:30PM |
QI2.00001: Office of Fusion Energy Sciences/Division of Plasma Physics Partnership in Education and Outreach Invited Speaker: Education and Outreach (E/O) activities in fusion and plasma physics have benefited greatly from the contributions of the American Physical Society-Division of Plasma Physics (APS-DPP) members, most of whom are researchers funded by the Office of Fusion Energy Sciences (OFES), a part of the Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Science. The E/O activities that take place each year at the annual meeting of the APS-DPP have, in many cases, grown out of the E/O work funded at laboratories, universities, and industries engaged in OFES research. The E/O partnership between the APS-DPP and DOE began with a Science Teachers Day held at the 1988 APS-DPP meeting in Hollywood, Fl. The next major step was the addition of the Plasma Expo at the 1994 APS-DPP meeting in Minneapolis, which helped to galvanize the entire DPP community. Researchers at General Atomics, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, and the University of Wisconsin, along with their colleagues from other institutions, were encouraged to help both OFES and DPP realize their education goals. The E/O activities have been highly visible and greatly valued at the DPP annual meetings and have become a hallmark of these meetings. While there are several programs specifically supported by OFES for the purpose of education and outreach, there is strong encouragement by OFES that all of its research programs contain a recognition of the importance of real-life fusion examples to enhance science education and to raise public awareness of fusion energy. As with the OFES E/O programs, the DPP E/O efforts are extremely dependent on voluntary work by personnel from across the fusion community. These outstanding E/O contributions, anchored by the OFES/DPP partnership, will be presented. [Preview Abstract] |
Wednesday, November 19, 2008 3:30PM - 4:00PM |
QI2.00002: Complex Plasma Physics and Rising Above the Gathering Storm Invited Speaker: Research in complex plasma is prevalent across a variety of regimes ranging from the majority of plasma processing environments to many astrophysical settings. Dust particles suspended within such plasmas acquire a charge from collisions with electrons and ions in the plasma. Depending upon the ratio of their interparticle potential energy to their average kinetic energy, once charged these particles can form a gaseous, liquid or crystalline structure with short to longer range ordering. The field of complex plasmas thus offers research opportunities across a wide range of academic disciplines including physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, electrical engineering and nanoscience. The field of complex plasmas also offers unique educational research opportunities for combating many of the issues raised in Rising Above the Gathering Storm, recently published by the National Academies Press. CASPER's Educational Outreach programs, supported by the National Science Foundation, the Department of Education and the Department of Labor takes advantage of these opportunities through a variety of avenues including a REU / RET program, a High School Scholars Program, integrated curriculum development and the CASPER Physics Circus. Together, these programs impact thousands of students and parents while providing K-12 teachers with curriculum, supporting hands-on material and support for introducing plasma and basic physical science concepts into the classroom. Both research results and educational outreach concepts from the above will be discussed. [Preview Abstract] |
Wednesday, November 19, 2008 4:00PM - 4:30PM |
QI2.00003: Helping Teachers Teach Plasma Physics Invited Speaker: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's E/O program in Fusion Science and Plasma Physics now includes both `pre-service' as well as `in-service' high school science teacher professional development activities. Teachers are instructed and mentored by `master teachers' and LLNL plasma researchers working in concert. The Fusion/Plasma E/O program exploits a unique science education partnership that exists between LLNL's Science Education Program and the UC Davis Edward Teller Education Center. For `in-service' teachers, the Fusion {\&} Astrophysics Teacher Research Academy (TRA) has four levels of workshops that are designed to give in-service high school science teachers experience in promoting and conducting research, most notably in the filed of plasma spectroscopy. Participating teachers in all four TRA levels may earn up to ten units of graduate credit from Cal-State University East Bay, and may apply these units toward a Masters of Science in Education. For `pre-service' teachers, the Science Teacher and Researcher (STAR) program, as a partnership with the California State University System, includes attracting undergraduate science majors to teaching careers by allowing them to pursue professional identities as both a research scientist as well as a science teacher. Participating `pre-service' STAR students are provided research internships at LLNL and work closely with the `in-service' TRA teachers. Results from the continuum `pre-service' to `in-service' science teacher professional development programs will be presented. [Preview Abstract] |
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