Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2009 Joint Spring Meeting of the Ohio Sections of the APS and AAPT
Volume 54, Number 3
Friday–Saturday, April 24–25, 2009; Ada, Ohio
Session C1: Physics Education and Mathematical Physics |
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Chair: Elizabeth George, Wittenberg University Room: McIntosh Center Conference Room 7 |
Saturday, April 25, 2009 8:16AM - 8:28AM |
C1.00001: Impacting Marion City Schools' science program Gordon Aubrecht The Ohio Department of Education has funded an innovative program that targets all middle school science teachers in the Marion City Schools. There is one consolidated middle school, Grant Middle School, in Marion. All the teachers have opted into a program to increase inquiry teaching. I will give the background and indicate how teachers are responding. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, April 25, 2009 8:28AM - 8:40AM |
C1.00002: Global temperatures and the global warming ``debate'' Gordon Aubrecht Many ordinary citizens listen to pronouncements on talk radio casting doubt on anthropogenic global warming. Some op-ed columnists likewise cast doubts, and are read by credulous citizens. For example, on 8 March 2009, the Boston Globe published a column by Jeff Jacoby, ``Where's global warming?'' According to Jacoby, ``But it isn't such hints of a planetary warming trend that have been piling up in profusion lately. Just the opposite.'' He goes on to write, ``the science of climate change is not nearly as important as the religion of climate change,'' and blamed Al Gore for getting his mistaken views accepted. George Will at the Washington Post also expressed denial. As a result, 44{\%} of U.S. voters, according to the January 19 2009 Rasmussen Report, blame long-term planetary trends for global warming, not human beings. Is there global cooling, as skeptics claim? We examine the temperature record. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, April 25, 2009 8:40AM - 8:52AM |
C1.00003: Developing Problems to Promote Real-World Transferrable Problem-Solving Skills Kathleen A. Harper, Zachary S. Goldman, Chengeng Zeng, Richard J. Freuler, John T. Demel, Krista M. Kecskemety Student problem-solving in physics has been the subject of study for approximately 50 years, and yet only a handful of studies have yielded even a faint signal that students transfer problem-solving skills from physics to other disciplines (or even from one physics domain to another). Perhaps part of the reason is that most typical problems in introductory physics textbooks do not require or foster general (i.e., non content-specific) skills. We have been developing problems that we believe require students to apply these more general skills. Currently we are implementing these problems in an introductory physics course for science majors. Examples of the problems and some initial reports of student reaction will be shared. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, April 25, 2009 8:52AM - 9:04AM |
C1.00004: Centrifugation and the Manhattan Project Cameron Reed A study of U. S. Army Manhattan Engineer District documents reveals that consideration of centrifugation as a means of uranium enrichment during World War II was considerably more extensive than is commonly appreciated. By the time the centrifuge project was abandoned in early 1944 a full-scale prototype unit had been fabricated and tested at near-production speeds, enrichments of close to theoretically-expected levels had been demonstrated with pilot-plant units, and plans for production plants had been developed. This paper will review the history of this little-known aspect of the Project and examine the circumstances of how it came to be discontinued. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, April 25, 2009 9:04AM - 9:16AM |
C1.00005: Maxwell's Equations through the Major Vector Theorems Josh Stoffel Maxwell's Equations are four equations that describe some important principles of the physics of electricity and magnetism. First we briefly explore the physical significance of these equations by looking at their mathematical properties. Then, after a description of Stokes' Theorem and the Divergence Theorem from vector calculus, we bring Maxwell's Equations together to derive the wave equation, a foundational result in the electromagnetic theory of light. [Preview Abstract] |
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