Conveners
Room 3: Parallel 1
- Kent Yagi (University of Virginia)
- Jason Sterlace (James Madison University)
Room 3: High School Teacher Meet and Greet
- CeeCee Bishop (Chesapeake Bay Governor's School)
Room 3: Parallel 3
- Carl Mungan (U.S. Naval Academy)
- David Morgan (Richard Bland College)
Real hands-on active learning projects as part of a Physics of Sports class will be presented. Advanced high school, college athlete, and liberal arts students take this class to satisfy elective requirements. Results from Magnus force lift coefficient measurements by the students will be presented including a demonstration of a homemade device, based on skateboard wheels, to spin up beach...
This talk presents a non‑worksheet lab manual for the mechanics course designed to cultivate genuine experimental skills rather than verify textbook results. The approach replaces prescriptive procedures with open‑ended investigation, prompting students to make measurement choices, confront uncertainty, and interpret obstacles as opportunities for discovery. By shifting motivation away from...
PhysTEC (Physics Teacher Education Coalition), a joint effort of the American Physical Society (APS) and the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT), aims to address the severe national shortage of qualified high school physics teachers. Supported by a PhysTEC capacity-building grant, a faculty member at Delaware State University—an HBCU—has developed a collaborative partnership with...
Meet up with other high school physics teachers to network, share ideas, and build community.
This very low-cost vertical force table produces excellent results (less that 2% error) which relates the equilibrium of two forces to the weight applied and reinforces to students the application of vectors both in the classroom and in everyday life. Setup is easy and students can change the settings in seconds allowing them to examine different vector scenarios.
- Hurdy Gurdy (1 min) How the Hurdy Gurdy can demonstrate mechanical acoustic coupling
- DMV Reaction Drop Card (1 min) The DMV reaction card is used to determine the reaction time of students. Students can use this to calculate the distance travelled before hitting the brakes.
- The Inverse Relationship (1 min) A very effective demonstration that helps students visualize how distance...
This session features two classroom‑ready demonstrations drawn from particle‑physics–inspired QuarkNet activities. Participants will model radioactive decay using dice to explore half‑life, mean lifetime, and the probabilistic nature of particle processes. They will also reenact Rutherford’s indirect‑measurement technique by rolling marbles toward hidden targets and using collision statistics...
Sound is a part of everyone's daily life. It is an oscillation produced from pressure waves
that travels through gases, liquids, and solids. Although sound and light are both waves,
sound waves are not visible to the human eye. This demo will visualize the frequencies
and amplitudes of sound waves by reflecting light off of a vibrating surface. To do this a
balloon is stretched onto an...
