Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2009 APS April Meeting
Volume 54, Number 4
Saturday–Tuesday, May 2–5, 2009; Denver, Colorado
Session G6: Physics on the Road Conference : A follow-up to the World Year of Physics 2005 |
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Sponsoring Units: FEd Chair: Ernest Malamud, University of Nevada - Reno Room: Governor's Square 16 |
Sunday, May 3, 2009 8:30AM - 9:06AM |
G6.00001: Half a Million Hands: On the Road with the Little Shop of Physics Invited Speaker: Can students learn science concepts by exploring and experimenting in an open-ended unstructured environment? Ever since our first school visit in the early 1990s, the focus of the Little Shop of Physics (http://littleshop.physics.colostate.edu) has been to present an open-ended, hands-on physics experience for K-12 students. Our projects are built and our programs are presented by a dedicated group of undergraduate science students who receive a valuable service learning experience. These students learn a lot of science and some very practical skills. But how about the K-12 students we visit? We know that we get K-12 students interested, that they like our program---but are we teaching them anything? We have recently become and education partner of a large research project, the Center for Multiscale Modeling of Atmospheric Processes (http://www.cmmap.org) at Colorado State University, which has given us a chance to expand and carefully evaluate the work that we do. In this talk I will present samples from the different types of programs we present, from school programs to television programs to teacher workshops, as well as recent data demonstrating the effectiveness of the work we do. There will be some cool projects, some interesting observations, some remarkable stories---and some good, solid data. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, May 3, 2009 9:06AM - 9:42AM |
G6.00002: Idaho State University Physics Road Show Invited Speaker: The ISU Physics Road Show services over 40 schools and 12,000 students each year. Exciting and informative demonstration shows are conducted during assemblies at elementary, middle, and junior high schools. Discussion will focus on efforts taken to maximize the educational impact to students and teachers. These efforts include supplemental information and materials provided to teachers, teacher workshops, and careful catering of subject material to state and national education standards. A few sample demonstrations will be performed, including the boiling green water sucker, a magnet strongly repelled from a cooled copper disc, an artificial geyser that shoots water 6 meters, and a few liquid nitrogen tricks. This program is supported in part by a grant from the Idaho Community Foundation. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, May 3, 2009 9:42AM - 10:18AM |
G6.00003: Taking Physics and Now the Stars on the Road With the Magic Physics Bus Invited Speaker: In February 2003 the ``Physics on the Road'' workshop, held at Colorado State University- Fort Collins, Colorado, brought together physics faculty who were experienced in designing and providing year --round mobile physics displays and those who were interested in initiating similar outreach programs. The impetus for the workshop was the upcoming ``World Year of Physics'', but the workshop had much broader impact for many of us who attended. The University of Nevada had a long history of demonstration shows for campus visitors from K-12 students/faculty but the cost of field trips began to limit this for many schools, especially for schools in poorer neighborhoods without large scale parental fundraising. The timing of the workshop was perfect for my developing program to utilize a donated ``electric bus'' as a traveling physics demo showcase. The program has grown to near our current limitations (70 mile range of the bus and time considerations), however we are expanding the ``scope'' of the project to include evening astronomy ``star parties'' as we enter the ``Year of Astronomy''. In addition to the bus transport of portable astronomy equipment to school sites we are adding, through donation, a 22 inch telescope in a domed observatory at a secondary campus location at the edge of Reno where large scale ``star parties'' can be conducted as outreach to K-12 and the community. The ``Physics on the Road'' bus reaches several thousand elementary and middle school students every year now and the potential for similar outreach with ``Stars on the Road'' has excited several of our faculty and physics students into increased participation in these endeavors to introduce our young people to science. It has become one of our most active ``recruitment'' plans and growing numbers of local students entering physics and other science majors is anecdotal evidence of success. [Preview Abstract] |
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