Dr. Paul Vanden Bout
Director of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory
| Directions to the Meeting | Lodgings at the Meeting | Registration |
Local Contact: Bascom Deaver, Department of Physics, 382 McCormick Road, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903, bsd@virginia.edu, Phone: 804-924-6574, Fax: 804-924-4576
2:00 to 3:30 p.m.
Room 218
Powerful Ideas in Physical Science: A Course model
Leon Ukens, Department of Physics, Towson University, Baltimore, MD 21252,
lukens@towson.edu
PIPS is a course model, developed by the AAPT, designed for the physical science education of prospective elementary teachers. In this course, concepts arise out of hands-on experiences and are then applied to other situations. The materials, methods, and experiences for a successful implementation of PIPS will be addressed.
Room 22
Phun Physics Demonstration Road Show
Stephen Thornton, Department of Physics, University of Virginia
The University of Virginia Department of Physics offers a fun-filled demonstration road show called Phun Physics to local K-12 schools within 60 miles of Charlottesville. During the past two years 13,000 persons have seen this show. During this workshop we will help others start their own road show by discussing how the show was started and financed, inspecting the dedicated van for the show, and performing several of the demonstrations including how they were constructed.
Room 216
Enhancement of Some Basic Experiments in the Introductory Physics Lab with Computers and PASCO Interfaces
Bascom Deaver, Department of Physics, University of Virginia
We will show improvements of some standard experiments including Franck-Hertz, Faraday’s Law, Free and Forced Oscillations of a Damped Mechanical Oscillator, and Gas Laws using computers with PASCO interfaces and Science Workshop and Excel software. These can be hands-on experiments. Also others are invited to bring experiments or to discuss their innovations using these items.
Room 212
UMd Activity Based Physics: Tutorials in Mechanical Waves
Michael Wittmann, Department of Physics, University of Maryland
As instructors (high school teachers and college or university faculty), we want our students to get the most out of their classroom time. Research-based curricula have been shown to be more effective than traditional instruction in allowing students to make use of the classroom learning opportunities we provide. At the University of Maryland, we have used investigations into student reasoning about wave physics to develop tutorials in which students work in groups on worksheets designed to help students come to a better understanding of the physics. These materials are appropriate for both the high school and introductory college level. In this workshop, we will present some of the research evidence as to the need and effectiveness of the materials and work through the materials on wave propagation and superposition. URL: http://www2.physics.umd.edu/~wittmann/research/
Presentation and Round Table Discussion: The Physics Revitalization Conference
Almost 500 physics faculty applied to attend this conference held in October, 1998, but only 200 were allowed to attend. Because of the great interest in the conference and its national implications for undergraduate physics, a general session will be held to bring us up to date on what went on at the conference and plans for the future. Warren Hein, from the AAPT, will make the general presentation, and five attendees from the Chesapeake section will give their impressions of the conference. After these presentations and responses from the panel, the session will be open to general questions and comments.
| Session chairman: | Steve Thornton, UVa |
| Presenters: | Warren Hein, AAPT Heidi Reis, Norfolk State Philip Peters, VMI Michael Duffy, Emory and Henry Gerald Taylor, JMU Kevin Giovanetti, JMU |
6:30 p.m.
Colonnade Hotel Main Dining Room
New Telescopes at the NRAO -- New Power for Radio Astronomy
Paul Vanden Bout, Director, National Radio Astronomy Observatory
The power of the Very Long Baseline Array, the newest operating telescope of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), is illustrated by the recent precise measurement of the mass of a black hole in the center of an active galaxy. The history and status of the construction of the Green Bank Telescope, which will be the world's largest fully steerable single dish radio telescope, is presented. The scientific motivation and plans for the Millimeter Array, a large millimeter-wavelength interferometer under development at the NRAO and to be built in Chile, will be discussed.
Saturday November 21, 1998
8:00 a.m. Coffee, juice and pastries
8:30 p.m. Session begins. All papers will be in Room 204.
Teaching Physics in an Electronic Classroom
Harry E. Bates, Thomas O. Krause, Eddie L. Loh, and Jeffrey I. Klupt,
Department of Physics, Towson University, Towson, MD 21252,
hbates@towson.edu, (410) 830-2441
We will report on our experiences in a lecture hall equipped with a Macintosh computer, a PC computer, a high intensity projector and the ClassTalk system. These systems have been used in both physics courses for majors and a general university requirement course for non majors. Problems, successes, and recommendations for those considering such a system will be highlighted.
Trends in Baccalaureate Degree Production in Physics
William H. Ingham, Physics Department, James Madison University
At the October 1995 meeting of CS-AAPT, I gave a presentation on trends in degree production in the sciences generally and on physics in particular. That talk covered physics baccalaureate degrees through 1995, which I have now updated. Commentary will be offered, and copies of summary material will be distributed.
Teaching the Fundamentals of Chaos in the Undergraduate Classical
Mechanics Laboratory
Dr. Vasilis "Bill" Pagonis, Western Maryland College, Physics Department
Westminster, MD 21157, vpagonis@wmdc.edu,
(410) 857-2481
The study of the fundamentals of chaotic systems is an integral part of sophomore undergraduate classes of Classical Mechanics. We have used several different teaching tools to facilitate the learning experience of undergraduates. As a mechanical system exhibiting chaotic behaviour we use the Pasco rotational chaotic disk, in conjunction with the Pasco Science Workshop interface. Phase space diagrams are easily obtained experimentally and the transition into the chaotic regime is clearly demonstrated. The well-known software Interactive Physics is then used to simulate the motion of the rotating disk and to further enhance student understanding of the chaotic system. Secondly, a simple Resistance-inductance-diode electronic system is setup and studied with the Science Workshop interface; the system clearly shows period doubling and the transition to chaotic behaviour is seen on the Fourier spectra. Finally, the simulation program Electronics Workbench is used by the students to study this electronic system in more detail.
Physics R Us
Mike Pagel, The Collegiate School, Richmond, Collegiate School, Richmond, Virginia
I will show how a motorized toy boat and motorized "water" can be used to verify addition of velocity vectors. Also, how a toy Jeep can be interfaced to the computer to draw real time graphs of motion and illustrate the interrelationship of these curves.
Update on the Mars Meteorite
Rev. Frank R. Haig, S.J., Loyola College in Maryland, 4501 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21210-2699
The famous Mars meteorite, ALH84001, that was reported to show evidence of life on Mars is still a subject of controversy. The original team has come out with a new defense of its original announcement. Where are we now?
Galileo and Einstein on the Web
Michael Fowler, Department of Physics, University of Virginia
This course explores two revolutions in our perception of the universe. The first, in which Galileo played the leading role, was the realization that what we see in the heavens -- the moon, the planets, the sun and stars -- are physical objects. For example, the moon has a rocky surface, not unlike some parts of earth, and is not made of some exotic ethereal substance, as had been generally believed before Galileo. This discovery led to the realization that the motions of the moon and planets obey the same physical laws as ordinary things moving on earth. Newton put this all together to give the first unified picture of the universe. The second revolution was Einstein's realization that this picture is incomplete -- space and time are not as straightforward as they first appear, but are related to each other in a simple but unexpected way. Among other results, this leads to the surprising consequence that mass and energy are different aspects of the same thing.
How Things Work: a Novel Way to Teach Physics to Non-Scientists
Louis Bloomfield, Department of Physics, University of Virginia,
lab3e@virginia.edu,
(804) 924-6595,
FAX: (804) 924-4576
How Things Work is a course for non-science students that introduces them to physics
in the context of everyday objects. It reverses the traditional format of physics courses
by starting with whole objects and looking inside them to see what makes them work.
Because it concentrates on concepts rather than math, and on familiar objects rather
than abstract constructs, How Things Work serves both to reduce students' fears of science
and to convey to them a substantial understanding of our modern technological world.
In the 7 years that How Things Work has been taught at the University of Virginia,
it has attracted a wide audience and has precipitated a cultural change.
Students throughout the University have come to recognize that they can understand
physics and that it does have something valuable to say to them. In this talk,
I will discuss the history and development of the course, its structure,
and some of the lessons I have learned from my experiences teaching the course and writing
materials for it.
| Website: | http://howthingswork.virginia.edu/course.html |
| www: | http://howthingswork.virginia.edu |
| book: | How Things Work: the Physics of Everyday Life (Wiley) |
Outreach Efforts - What Is Our Responsibility?
Stephen Thornton, Department of Physics, University of Virginia
The UVa Physics Department has an extensive outreach program directed towards K-12 schools. This includes a Phun Physics road show that travels to a local school once a week during the school year, a statewide physical science series for inservice teachers, summer workshops for teachers, NSF Research Experience for Teachers summer program, and we are instituting a new masters degree in physics education for middle school physical science and high school physics teachers. Plans are also underway for developing a physics certification program (non-degree) for middle and high school teachers. These programs will be discussed including pitfalls, difficulties, and successes.
Student Ideas and Introductory Astronomy: The Sun as a Star
Beth Hufnagel and Grace Deming, Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park
A professor who knows the ideas typically held by her students can use them to help the students construct a coherent model. Otherwise, each student is likely to construct a model which makes sense to the student, but is unanticipated by the professor. The student model may be missing a key idea (which the student may know but did not consider) or include irrelevant or incorrect ideas.
One of us (BH) conducted in-depth interviews of ten representative introductory-astronomy students to discover their typical ideas about the Sun. For example, before instruction many of the students drew on their understanding of the planets to construct a model of a hot, gaseous Sun that does not require an internal energy source. We then incorporated these student ideas as distractors into multiple-choice questions given later as test questions.
This is part of a national collaboration to develop a database of conceptual multiple choice questions, available to educators to assess their students' preconceptions, measure the effectiveness of instruction, and compare their class's results to published baselines. The collaboration includes Jeff Adams, Tim Slater (Montana State), Rebecca Lindell Adrian (Univ. of Nebraska), Michael Zeilik (Univ. of New Mexico), and the authors.
This research was supported by the National Science Foundation through Grant DGE-9714489.
Awards for the Best Papers
To be judged by members in the audience.
Business Meeting
"http://www.physics.udel.edu/csaapt/Fall1998/call.html"
Last updated Nov. 16, 1998.