Physics Alliance of Central New York

Saturday I got up dark and early and drove east for about 90 minutes to attend the Physics Alliance of Central New York meeting at Syracuse University.  The alliance consists of a group of physics teachers at both the high school and university level getting together on a monthly basis for professional development and support.

The meeting began with some general introductions and announcements, including a discussion of the upcoming Physics in Your Future Program on Saturday, 10/22 at 2:30 p.m. at Syracuse.  This two-hour program, geared for senior high school students, features undergrad seniors giving 10-minute talks about what it’s like to be a physics major, and a 20-minute faculty talk on the Syracuse Physics program.

Dr. Allen Miller also mentioned serendipitously hearing the “Don’t Lecture Me” program about Physics Education Research on NPR.  The entire program is just under an hour and can be downloaded in MP3 format.

Diving into the main program for today, we started with dual presentations on The Fantastic Things High School Physics Teachers do in the Summer.  Part I dealt with Josh Buchman (Fayetteville-Manlius High School) and Ranald Bleakley (Weedsport High School) spending the summer at CERN in France/Switzerland.  They opened with a brief overview of CERN’s activities as depicted in the video below, then went on to discuss the big-picture as well as “day-in-the-life” details of their experience.

This was followed with Part II by Marty Alderman (Cornell University) focusing on his experience as REU coordinator at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico this summer.  Expanding beyond just his experience, Alderman also pointed out further REU and RET opportunities both within and outside the United States.

Anne Huntress of South Lewis High School then followed up with a description of her Rube Goldberg Lab Practical project, a program I was very interested in as it would meld quite well with my current physics program at Irondequoit High School.  I am especially fond of her method of providing her students with their task, then standing back to allow them to work through how to accomplish it without providing detailed instructions.  With Ms. Huntress’s permission, I will be adding this project to the APlusPhysics.com Project Pages, and will likely look at replacing our 2nd Quarter Mousetrap Car project with this adventure in learning.  Check out some of her student videos below!

Overall, I had a very nice time and especially enjoyed the opportunity to meet and begin to get to know some colleagues in physics education I might not have run into otherwise.  Every time I speak with another physics educator, I seem to learn something new, and look forward to continuing my learning as I expand my network of known associates and colleagues in this field.  Thank you so much for welcoming me into your fold!