AAPT Summer Meeting 2019, Provo, Utah
July 25, 2019 Leave a comment
Eugenia Etkina doing an Observation Experiment: You poke a balloon with a pin, and it bursts with a loud bang. Then you poke a plastic bag filled with air with the same pin and it doesn’t make any bang. Why? Students must come up with an explanation for the observations, and then design Testing Experiments to test their explanations.
Observation Experiment using LEDs: 3 V battery, filament bulb, red LED, green LED , voltmeter, ammeter, resistance bridge are provided. Student is asked to find I vs V graph for each component over as wide a range of values as possible. 
The I vs V graph for light bulb and LED 
resistance bridge for use as potential divider. 
use of cardboard arrows to make students learn vector addition experientially. 
Eugenia showing video of a Testing Experiment: a large plastic bottle is hung from a spring inside a sealed container, which is slowly evacuated. The bottle is found to come down as the air is evacuated confirming the hypothesis that the air exerts upward buoyant force on all objects. 
Observation experiment: A bottle of water with a straw through the cap and a hole on the side of the bottle. How will the water flow rate through the hole in the wall change with time depending on the relative position of water level with respect to the tip of the straw inside the bottle, and why? 
View inside the campus of Brigham Young University as we went for lunch. 
BYU: on the way to lunch. 
on the way back home from 1st day’s workshop. 
on the way back home from 1st day’s workshop.
on the way back home from 1st day’s workshop.
Looking out the window of my room 304 in Hyatt Place, Salt Lake City/Lehi. 
Looking out the window of my room 304 in Hyatt Place, Salt Lake City/Lehi.
Looking out the window of my room 304 in Hyatt Place, Salt Lake City/Lehi.
On the way to workshop on Day 2 
On the way to workshop on Day 2
Hall of Flags in Utah Valley University 
Workshop 2: Designing Economic Outreach Kits for Physics 
Workshop 2: Stephen Irons from Yale University
Workshop 2: They gave a detailed overview of how to plan and design economic outreach kits and in the last part let us try to make one kit each out of a variety of kits on display that they had developed. They also let us take some kits for free.
Workshop 2: Designing Economic Outreach Kits for Physics
Workshop 2: Demonstration of a portable wimshurst machine which they developed.
Workshop 2: Demonstrating the color mixer using 3 LEDs which they developed.
Workshop 2: Explaining the design of the Chaotic Pendulum
See the Focault Pendulum in the background on the floor behind and below me. I wonder why it doesn’t seem to ever stop oscillating. Its amplitude was not decreasing for as long as I watched. I wonder why!!?? 
With James Carter – an American physics teacher who is currently teaching in Taiwan. We became good friends instantly! 
Workshop 3 (for me) 
Workshop 3: James T Laverty struggled with a sore arm but made the workshop very engaging and illuminating. I learned about the NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards) and Three Dimensional Learning 
Workshop 3: James T Laverty interspersed his session with jokes to make his point. 
The most condensed list of Scientific Practices 
The most condensed list of Cross Cutting Concepts 
The most condensed list of Physics Core Ideas 
Sample Assessment Tasks that we evaluated whether they met the 3 D framework for assessments – Scientific Practice, Cross Cutting Concept and Core Idea. 
Sample Assessment Tasks that we evaluated
Sample Assessment Tasks that we evaluated
Sample Assessment Tasks that we evaluated
Exam A is the typical exam which shows that most questions do not test any aspect of the 3D framework. 
Each group explaining the assesment task that they created using the 3D framework. 
My group explaining the assesment task that we created using the 3D framework.
Each group explaining the assesment task that they created using the 3D framework.
Hall of Flags in Utah Valley University
Good to see Excellence in Teachers being recognised in such a grand manner. This is Utah Valley University. 
James and me: Hyatt Place Provo is in the background between us. If I booked it correctly, I just had to walk a few steps to reach the Utah Valley Convention Centre. Instead, I booked the Hyatt Place Salt Lake City/Lehi by mistake, costing me hundreds of dollars in daily travel by cab! 
Hyatt Place Provo and Utah Valley Convention Center on opposite sides of the road. 
Hyatt Place Provo 
view of the mountains at Provo. 
On the way to lunch with James. 
Inside the Utah Valley Convention Centre (back after lunch). 
Natalie Ferris – undergraduate student of Dickinson College: The AAPT/ALPha 2018 awardee explaining her work on double slit interference with partially coherent light. 
Natalie Ferris – undergraduate student of Dickinson College: The AAPT/ALPha 2018 awardee explaining her work on double slit interference with partially coherent light.
Natalie Ferris – undergraduate student of Dickinson College: The AAPT/ALPha 2018 awardee explaining her work on double slit interference with partially coherent light.
Natalie Ferris – undergraduate student of Dickinson College: The AAPT/ALPha 2018 awardee explaining her work on double slit interference with partially coherent light.
Me explaining one of four posters that I presented in the SPS (Society of Physics Students) Undergraduate Research and Outreach Poster Session. 
Me explaining one of four posters that I presented in the SPS (Society of Physics Students) Undergraduate Research and Outreach Poster Session.
Me explaining one of four posters that I presented in the SPS (Society of Physics Students) Undergraduate Research and Outreach Poster Session.
One of four posters that I presented in the SPS (Society of Physics Students) Undergraduate Research and Outreach Poster Session. 
Me explaining one of four posters that I presented in the SPS (Society of Physics Students) Undergraduate Research and Outreach Poster Session.
James Carter helped me in putting up the posters. Thank you James! 
One of four posters that I presented in the SPS (Society of Physics Students) Undergraduate Research and Outreach Poster Session.
This is the highlight of my trip! He is Bruce Sherwood – The DEVELOPER of VPython and co-author of Matter and Interactions. I am in awe of him because I use Vpython to do all my physics simulations and I can’t imagine how brilliant he must be to develop that programming language by himself! His book is also amazing. So i was thrilled when he came up to me and appreciated me for making physics simulations using Vpython. 
One of four posters that I presented in the SPS (Society of Physics Students) Undergraduate Research and Outreach Poster Session. 
4 out of 13 posters in the SPS Undergraduate Research and Outreach Poster Session were from The Doon School, Dehradun, India. All who attended the poster session, could not help, but notice it and I heard them commenting about that and many appreciated me for the good work. It was very satisfying! 
2 of the 4 posters from The Doon School, Dehradun, at the SPS Undergraduate Research and Outreach Poster Session at the AAPT Summer Meeting 2019 at Provo, Utah. 
This is the sketch I made to represent what physics means to me! 
high precision pendulum to measure g accurately. 
setup to visualise the re-arrangement of ferromagnetic domains due to changing magnetic fields. 
setup to see the electron diffraction pattern due to the inter-atomic spacing. 
Measuring G (universal gravitational constant) using Cavendish experiment. 
The circular fringes of the electron diffraction pattern can be clearly seen here. 
One of numerous physics toys on display 
Winner of the annual innovative physics demonstration experiment contest conducted by AAPT 
We need to get these whiteboards for use by students to do group work and show their work to the teacher by lifting it up. We can use use thin plywood with white sunmica covering I think. 
See the superconductor disc suspended in mid-air! The explanation for this phenomenon of magnetic levitation is not so simple! Meissner Effect and the locking of magnetic field lines inside the superconductor are some of the concepts involved. 
magnetic levitation 
magnetic levitation
This little boy was so excited to finally get the straw propeller spinning! It’s a blur in front of his face! 
One of the workshop attendees posing with the successfully constructed water sprinkler. 
Ronal Thornton and David Sokoloff during their session on Interactive Lecture Demonstrations 
Dr. Shiladitya Raj Chaudhury during his paper presentation on Interactive Lecture Demonstrations 
Dr. Shiladitya Raj Chaudhury’s paper presentation on Interactive Lecture Demonstrations
Dr.ShiladityaRajChaudhury’spaperpresentationonInteractiveLectureDemonstrations
Another paper presentation about ILD (Interactive Lecture Demonstrations) 
View from the Frontrunner train on the way back to hotel. 
View from the Frontrunner train on the way back to hotel.
View from the Frontrunner train on the way back to hotel.
View from the Frontrunner train on the way back to hotel.
View from the Frontrunner train on the way back to hotel.
View from the Frontrunner train on the way back to hotel.
View from the Frontrunner train on the way back to hotel.
View during the walk from Lehi station to Hyatt Place Salt Lake City/Lehi hotel. 
View during the walk from Lehi station to Hyatt Place Salt Lake City/Lehi hotel.
Approaching the Hyatt Place by walk at last! 
Yes! Finally reached the hotel using Google Map! 
Shopping Outlets near Hyatt Place Salt Lake City/Lehi. 
Me conducting the workshop session titled “Demonstrate 5 Physics Concepts Using this DIY Straw Sprinkler” at the PTRA: Make, Play, Do to Learn Session at the Ballroom B at the Utah Valley Convention Centre.
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