Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS March Meeting 2021
Volume 66, Number 1
Monday–Friday, March 15–19, 2021; Virtual; Time Zone: Central Daylight Time, USA
Session X15: Rethinking Who and Where: Broadening Participation through Physics OutreachEducation Live Outreach Undergrad Friendly
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Sponsoring Units: FOEP FED Chair: E. Dan Dahlberg, University of Minnesota |
Friday, March 19, 2021 8:00AM - 8:12AM Live |
X15.00001: Impact of Texas A&M University Physics Outreach Programs on Students Tatiana Erukhimova, Callie Rethman, Jonan Donaldson, Daniel Choi, Jonathan Perry, Matthew Dew This study explores the impact of physics outreach activities on student’s identity and the development of necessary skills for 21st century careers. Data were collected using a survey instrument (117 responses) and interviews (35) with current and former undergraduate and graduate students who participated in outreach programs through the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Texas A&M University. The study reveals several factors linking participation in physics outreach programs to the development of an individual’s physics identity and sense of belonging in addition to soft skill development. The transition from new student to contributing physicist does not happen only through experiences in the classroom or in a laboratory. This transformation requires interactions in a broader context between an individual and the STEM community. Physics outreach programs provide a critical context for informal experiences to complete the education of any aspiring physicist. These results will help inform future retention efforts, and could be applied to outreach programs beyond physics and astronomy. |
Friday, March 19, 2021 8:12AM - 8:24AM Live |
X15.00002: Rostros Físicos: A Multimedia Project Showcasing the Successes of Hispanic and Latin American Physicists Leonela Tasé Sueiro, María Alejandra Loza, Emily Riley, Jorge Ramirez, Daniel Perry Lathrop, Daniel Serrano Systemic inequities at the societal and discipline-specific level have resulted in and sustain the underrepresentation of Hispanic and Latin American individuals in Physics. Among the many causes is a lack of visibility of relatable role models and culturally relevant career advice. |
Friday, March 19, 2021 8:24AM - 8:36AM Live |
X15.00003: From Ten Blocks to Ten Million Lightyears: Bringing the universe to our neighborhood Nicholas Wolff, Tra'Mya Lauderdale, LeShaundria Brown We have established K-5 outreach centering on optics and astronomy. Lane College is a historically black college committed to educating underserved minority students, and our long-term goal is to increase the number of minority students studying physics and general science awareness. |
Friday, March 19, 2021 8:36AM - 8:48AM Live |
X15.00004: Structures that support university students’ identities: An informal physics case Claudia Fracchiolla, Brean Prefontaine, Kathleen A Hinko Understanding how one builds a physics identity is an important step to creating structures and practices that support physics students both in and out of the classroom. We have investigated how university students’ physics identities can be fostered through teaching youth in informal physics programs. We collected reflections and interviews from participants in three different informal programs and analysed each experience with an operationalized Communities of Practice framework. Our analysis shows that students’ identities can be supported through different structures and practices within each program. We find that students’ personal values aligning with the program’s mission was the biggest predictor of membership, while interactions with members of the community served as the most important mechanism for integration into the community. This work illuminates the specific aspects of informal physics programs that facilitate physics identity formation among the university students who choose to participate. |
Friday, March 19, 2021 8:48AM - 9:00AM Live |
X15.00005: The nationwide informal physics efforts before and during COVID-19 pandemic Dena Izadi, Michael B Bennett, Kathleen A Hinko We have undertaken a nationwide effort to develop a systemic understanding of the landscape of informal physics, including how informal physics programs are facilitated. Our study is focused on a number of important aspects, including how informal physics programs are facilitated, what the facilitator’s goals are in the program, how they are socially constructed, and how they attract their audience. We have collected survey and interview data along with some site visit field-notes for several different informal physics activities sponsored by physics departments in academic institutes and physics national labs. To test our methodology, we implemented our data collection protocol across the state of Michigan, as a microcosm of other states in the US. In addition, we collected various followup interview data from our previous participants in and outside Michigan about how their programs are affected by the pandemic. Here we present some data on the landscape of informal physics for both before and during COVID. |
Friday, March 19, 2021 9:00AM - 9:12AM Live |
X15.00006: Modeling the key components of informal physics programs Bryan Stanley, Dena Izadi, Kathleen A Hinko Physicists, physics students, and public audiences gather in informal physics learning environments in a variety of formats, such as youth camps, public lectures, and demo shows. However, focusing only on the format of these events does not allow us to understand underlying factors important for the design and implementation of informal physics activities. From our qualitative research study, we investigate the aspects of informal physics programs that are critical to their functionality and present the results here. We conducted surveys, interviews with lead program facilitators, and site visits to multiple programs, and analyzed the data to find key themes and challenges present within the programs. We work to identify the key components of informal physics programs that facilitators have influence over, such as recruitment, program content, and the distribution of personnel roles. We share our current model for these key components and discuss future work to develop tools for program facilitators to assess their programs. |
Friday, March 19, 2021 9:12AM - 9:24AM Live |
X15.00007: The SpinWheel: Using artistic expression to overcome math phobia Emily Kuhn, Hannah J Bossi, Jenna Ditto, Jennifer Gaines, Margaret Elise Gaskell, Bridget Hegarty, Stefan Krastanov, Rebecca LaCroix, Samantha Pagan Over the past four years, the Yale Graduate Society of Women Engineers outreach team has developed educational activities that lessen math phobia’s power by introducing math, coding, and electronics as tools for artistic expression. Our activities are designed to be challenging, doable, and fun, allowing students to realize that mastering technical skills takes practice, not innate ability. Feedback after these events demonstrated that we have been able to attract students not previously considering engineering and excite them about the field. In this session, we will cover some example activities that Yale GradSWE developed for middle and high schoolers, discuss what was particularly effective about each activity, and empower attendees to implement similar activities as part of their own outreach efforts. We will end the session by modeling a successful hands-on activity, using the SpinWheel, a STEM educational kit we released on Kickstarter. |
Friday, March 19, 2021 9:24AM - 9:36AM Live |
X15.00008: Introducing Physics Unlimited's Moonshot Program Pavel Shibayev As part of our nonprofit's efforts to engage students in the US and around the world in learning physics through innovative practices and to supplement their classroom instruction (or lack thereof, as is the case in 40% of US high schools that do not offer physics classes), we have organized a virtual summer program this past August, consisting of two parts: a summer school and a summer camp. The former constituted a three-week series of nine custom-designed innovative lessons in general physics, hosted by three volunteer instructors - students from Harvard and UC Berkeley - live via Zoom and recorded for students from different time zones. The latter involved a series of over twenty facilitator-led online networking sessions for participants from nine countries, in addition to career panels. Our free pilot program was well-received, and we plan to organize new iterations of our Moonshot curriculum specifically targeting underrepresented groups, including incarcerated learners at correctional facilities. More information about Physics Unlimited can be found at physicsu.org. |
Friday, March 19, 2021 9:36AM - 10:12AM Live |
X15.00009: Prize for a Faculty Member for Research in an Undergraduate Institution (2020) Invited Speaker: Kathy Aidala Many people are familiar with the atomic force microscope, but fewer have experience using its capabilities to do more than image the topography of a sample, usually in air. In this talk, I’ll present three different subfields of research that all involve the atomic force microscope. The “force curve” enables the measurement of mechanical properties, including Young’s modulus and adhesion. Normally, the tip is brought into contact with a surface, and the force required to push into the sample is measured. We have used the AFM to image natively adhered bacteria to surfaces in fluid and perform force curves on individual bacteria. We have also grown the biofilm on a cantilever and brought it into contact with different surfaces, to study the early stages of adhesion. Magnetic force microscopy (MFM) may be a familiar technique that can reveal the magnetic state of nanostructures. In rings of the correct size, there is a vortex state in which all moments lie circumferentially in plane, creating a closed-flux state that does not have any MFM contrast in a perfectly symmetric ring. It is challenging to experimentally control the clockwise or counterclockwise circulation of this vortex state with a uniform external applied field. Instead, we pass a current through a solid platinum AFM tip in order to create a local circular Oersted field to probe the magnetic behavior of rings and discs. Finally, I’ll present our current efforts using Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) to image real-time charge motion in organic semiconductors. All of this work was completed in my lab at Mount Holyoke College, where I have mentored 52 undergraduate women over the past fourteen years. |
Friday, March 19, 2021 10:12AM - 10:24AM Live |
X15.00010: Discovering Cosmic Ray Muons at Letchworth State Park: Revealing “Invisible” Nature George Marcus, Kurtis A Fletcher, Lydia P Fillhart, Kevin Seitz, Matthew VanAllen, Clinton Cross We set out to inspire visitors to a state park known for its sweeping vistas to engage with the beauty of the subatomic world that is also present in these views, but invisible to the naked eye. To accomplish this, we built muon detectors using open source plans from the CosmicWatch project at MIT. These detectors emitted a flash of light upon detection of a muon while recording and displaying the cumulative count of events. These detectors were deployed to high-traffic locations at Letchworth State Park in Western New York for 3 months in the Summer of 2020, accompanied by informational signage and links to a website we constructed. This site hosted more information about muons targeted at visitors with a range of different backgrounds as well as links to additional resources and an informational outreach video we created. The video described the entire project and also included muon detections from a mile high in a hot air balloon and from the depths of a local mine, recreating historical measurements that shaped our understanding of cosmic rays. We will describe the goals, implementation and impacts of this project. |
Friday, March 19, 2021 10:24AM - 10:36AM Live |
X15.00011: Physics Fridays –10 Years of K-8 Outreach Krista Freeman, Chris Mentrek, James Pitchford, Janna Mino, Christian Gunder, Samantha Tietjen, Anna Ellis, Andrew Scherer, Kiril Streletzky One Friday afternoon in January 2011, a motley crew hurried down the streets of Cleveland carrying a giant spring, a jump rope, dozens of colorful slinkies, boomwhackers, and a homemade oscilloscope (the “Amazing Wave-Viewer of Science”). Who were these intrepid travelers? Members of the Department of Physics at Cleveland State University. What were they doing? Going to deliver “Makin’ Waves” – the first lesson of their new Physics Fridays outreach program. Where were they headed? To Campus International School (CIS), a Cleveland public K-8 school. Why? To bring physics, and the mindset of curiosity and discovery so integral to physics, to students who might not otherwise be exposed to science outside of the classroom. That first lesson, and those that followed over the next years, had a positive impact on not only CIS students, but also on the 55+ CSU student volunteers. Ten years later, (most) members of the outreach team have changed and the collection of lesson plans has grown substantially, but the passion for bringing science to kids has remained. This presentation will review the first ten years of Physics Fridays at CIS, highlighting our motivation and discussing the challenges and successes of our award-winning physics outreach program. |
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