[YAPA] Schedule and notes from first meeting

[Roy McCullough]

Tentative YAPA schedule for 2010-2011
Monday September 27  at YSU
Tuesday October 19  at Canfield High
Monday November 15 at YSU
Thursday February 3 at Mineral Ridge
Tuesday March 8 at YSU
Thursday April 14 at Poland  (get your taxes done early)
Thursday May 5 at YSU
 
YSU Physics Olympics will be held March 26th
 
 
 
September 2010 YAPA meeting
What you missed:
Jodi McCullough shared some LED’s from a light set bought at Big Lots ($20 for 100 lights).  They fire white one direction and colors (yellow, red, green, blue) in the other direction.  She cut them into 4 bulb strings, placed them in an L shape on black foam core board, and lit them with 2-nine volt batteries in series.  She used these in color mode as her object for a lens lab.  Allows students to easily see reversals, reasonably measure image height and as Jim Andrews noted were bright enough to use in full room light.
 
Jim Andrews discussed the College-High School program as it applies to Physics at YSU.  He and Gregg Sturrus indicated that many local high schools have indicated interest in the program with a large number of high school students potentially receiving credit for physics 1501 through YSU. Discussion ensued about how the program will be run, if you are interested and haven’t been in contact with the university, you should call Gregg at the physics department.  Jim also shared some high powered (50 mW) green laser pointers the department purchased over the internet for about $15.  He first discussed how these use high powered infrared 808 nm (infrared) to pump a material to 1064 nm and this then feeds a frequency doubler that produces the 532 nm green light.  These laser pointers are still class IIIb, but are much brighter than the original 5 mW ones.  The original design also had a filter to block any of the higher powered UV that might escape.  Upon further investigation, they found that the new pointers lacked this blocking filter and when investigating the output in infrared it appears that there is more UV power output than green, causing great concern about the safety of these laser pointers.
 
Richard Zitto updated us the Zitto collection at the Smithsonian.  He shared a 1920’s text image of one of the devices he donated known as Quinke whistles, which were used for acoustical interferometry.   He again asked that anyone with access to original PSSC or HPP materials or pre 1920 text or lab materials to please contact him so that he can help the Smithsonian complete their collections in these areas.  Richard also pointed out that the Ohio Section of AAPT will meet on the October 9th at the University of Mount Union. This is one of the closer meeting locations, so he suggested that it would be an opportune one for our members to attend.  
 
Robert Pendzik discussed his attendance at a CAE workshop in which he learned about interactive lectures i.e. engaging students during the lecture process with multiple choice questions that they could respond to with printed cards, hand signals, or key pad systems.  He also started a discussion about the role of homework in our classes.  During the discussion, Jim Andrews shared his use of test corrections in a manner similar to that discussed by Kathy Andre, et al in a Physics Teacher magazine article.  
 
Rebecca Sobinovsky shared that she finished her Masters degree work (Congratulations) and would be attending a Turning Point conference in which one of the main speakers will be Eric Mazur, the author of Peer Instruction.
 
Roy McCullough shared the activities he has used this year to introduce Newton’s third and second laws, in that order.  The approach used allows students to slowly build a deeper understanding and belief in the Third Law.   He also collected donations for a memorial scholarship in Tim Battista’s name for Riverside High School.
 
The evening ended with giveaways which included very powerful medical magnets (more of these will be available the next YSU YAPA meeting) and astronomy materials donated by Sharon Shanks- Thank you Sharon.
 
 
  		 	   		  
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