2007 Talks
Saturday Featured Talk 10:30 am
New Directions for AAPT
Bob Hilborn
Senior Physics Fellow AAPT, former President of AAPT
Research Professor of Physics, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
After celebrating its first 75 years of service to the physics community, AAPT is now developing a set of strategic plans for the next decade. The plans are being formulated by a wide spectrum of the AAPT membership and will soon be made available for public comment. While building on its historic strengths—close interactions among physics teachers in K-12 schools, colleges, and universities—AAPT intends to broaden the scope of its activities by taking a more active role in public policy issues dealing with physics education and in professional development for physics teachers at all levels. AAPT is also considering changes in governance and in the relationship between the AAPT sections and the national AAPT organization. In this talk, I will give my view of the current situation in which physics operates and why these changes in AAPT goals and objectives are important for the organization, for the physics community, and for the nation.
Friday Talks
1:00 pm Theo Koupelis Electromagnitic Fields and Angular Momentum
1:15 pm Erik Hendrickson Why Smart People Believe Strange Things
1:40 pm Matt Mewes Testing the Limits of Relativity
2:00 pm Mike Politano Modeling in Middle School Science
2:15 pm Kenneth Mendelson The case of the missing secretaries: A curious acoustic illusion
2:30 pm Ramesh Misra A Mechanics Course for Physics Majors
2:45 pm Candice Klug Studying Proteins Using Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Spectroscopy
3:10 pm Kathleen Schmainda Using MRI to Study Brain Tumors
3: 35 pm Gary Baier Essay Questions from the Far Side
3:50 pm Alan Scott Soda Can Physics
4:10 pm Jim Mallman Problems, Problems, and Problems
Saturday Talks
8:30 am Todd Zimmerman Implementing Faculty Flexible Lecture-Lab Instruction in Physics
8:45 am Mel Sabella The Chicago Physics Bus
9:10 am Liz Sutton Opportunities for Educators at Milwaukee’s Discovery World
9:35 am Ruth Howes Four Models of Undergraduate Research
9:50 am Jim Madsen Opportunities for Research in Astronomy for Two Year College Students
10:10am Chris Stockdale Involving Students in Undergraduate Research
10:30am Will Cantrell Research as an Essential Part of Undergraduate Physics
11:00am Robert Hilbourn Future Directions for AAPT
Posters that have been submitted
Nathan Miller - Using Hands-On Overlay Models of Solar System Motions
Amy Raplinger and Matt Evans - Use of Student Response Systems in Small Classes
Justin Reeder - Tales from an SPS Intern
Crackerbarrel on Science Education for Premeds: The discussion will be facilitated by Robert Hilborn, senior staff physicist at AAPT, who represents the physics community on the AAMC/HHMI Scientific Foundation for Future Physicians Committee. The committee had its first meeting in July and began its deliberations. The goal is to develop a series of recommendations for both undergraduate colleges and universities and for medical schools about the scientific training of physicians. The general idea is to move from criteria articulated as a series of courses to a list of competencies that the future physicians should be able to demonstrate at various stages of their careers. The hope is that most medical schools will adopt the new competency scheme as a basis for admission and for the basic science courses the students take in medical school. There will be an accompanying revision of the MCAT, which is administered by AAMC. The group is working up a summary of its summer meeting discussions. The plan is to have a draft set of recommendations sometime in mid-2008 and to make those draft recommendations available for comment from medical schools and undergraduate colleges and universities and others. Of the 22 committee members, most are deans of medical schools or medical school professors. Four members represent the undergraduate scientific disciplines.