Physics News from the AIP Term 1, No 3, 2014
Table of Contents
1. Luna Park Numbers: An Update: Wednesday fully booked
2. 2014 Physics Teachers' Conference: 14th, 15th Feb
a) Some Workshop cancellations. Registrations still open
b) Consultation on Assessment as part of Physics Review
3. Australian Volunteers International: Teacher trainer - Physics wanted in Tanzania
4. Astronomy: Education, Outreach and Careers - Public Meeting 2pm - 4pm, 6th March, Swinburne University
5. Forthcoming events for Students and the General Public *
a) Physics Days at Luna Park with Roulette Display, 4th - 6th March, 2014
6. Physics News from the Web
a) Thermal technique improves blood-flow measurements
b) Locust eardrum is a tiny frequency analyser
c) IceCube finds cosmic neutrinos at the South Pole
* Events listed for the first time are in bold with details below. The details of the other events can be found on our website at www.vicphysics.org/forthcomingevents.html or in previous newsletters at www.vicphysics.org/aipnews.html
This newsletter is compiled by the Australian Institute of Physics (Victorian Branch) Education Committee.
The next meeting of the AIP Education Committee will be on Tuesday, 11th March at University High School. All teachers are welcome to attend this or any other meeting. You don't need to be a member of the AIP to get involved. If you would like to attend, please contact the chair, Sue Grant, at .
1. Luna Park Numbers: An Update: Wednesday fully booked
Wednesday, 5th March is fully booked and Tuesday, 4th and Thursday 6th March are filling fast.
If you wish to make a booking, see item 5a below for details.
2. 2014 Physics Teachers' Conference, 14th, 15th Feb
a) Some Workshop Cancellations. Registrations still open
STAV is still accepting registrations, but the following workshops have been cancelled:
A9 Tour of 'New Horizon' Physics Labs
A14 Under the hood of FAR Labs: How remote laboratory access work
B9 Tour of 'New Horizon' Physics Labs
B15 Sound In Practice
C6 A Hypothetical Planet
C7 BZE: Beyond Zero Emissions - Seriously cutting Australia’s greenhouse emissions
C15 Sound In Practice
C16 Australian Synchrotron Physics Excursions
D8 Australian Synchrotron: The Physics of the Machine
D14 Remote access to the synchrotron: a scientific Agora
E6 A Hypothetical Planet
Note also that two workshops have had to be moved earlier in the program. The D9 workshop 'Engaging students in Physics though online interactions' has moved to B17, its description has also been corrected, see below. The workshop D10 'Compton Scattering - the Birth of the Photon' has moved to C17.
The Conference brochure and program on the STAV and vicphysics website have been updated.
· B17 Engaging students in Physics though online interactions. Michael Rosenbrock, Wodonga Senior Secondary College, Steve Draper, Melbourne High School. This session will explore opportunities for engaging students in Physics using freely available online tools. We will explain how Melbourne High School Physics Department have successfully used a single website to both interact with and provide resources to students across a range of platforms webpage, touchscreen, interactive whiteboard, Facebook page, Twitter feed, Youtube channel, Google Drive, Skype. We will discuss how this has increased student engagement in Physics and improved communication with students.
· C17 Compton Scattering - the Birth of the Photon, Theo Hughes, Monash University. This talk is partly stimulated by the erroneous mention of Planck and Bohr as "fathers" of the photon model in one of the Australian Curriculum drafts. The session will also include a quick tour at the end of the talk to show participants an actual Compton Scattering experiment.
Information about:
· the features of the program
· the conference session as part of Physics Review process
· what to bring along and share
can be found in the earlier newsletters and on the vicphysics website above.
The brochure and registration form are available at www.vicphysics.org/conf2014.html and http://www.sciencevictoria.com.au/confVCE.html. Online registration is available at http://www.sciencevictoria.com.au/confVCE.html.
b) Consultation on Assessment as part of Physics Review
There will be a session of small group discussion as part of the consultation process for the Physics Review.
As the Review is in its early stages, this discussion will focus on assessment issues, rather than content related issues. There will be an opportunity for consultation on those matters later in 2014.
The questions for consideration are:
Science Inquiry Skills
1. Are practical investigations, summary reports, annotated folios and data analysis adequate to assess the range of inquiry skills?
Science as a Human Endeavour
2. Are there current assessment tasks that can assess this strand and should a specific assessment task or tasks be mandated, as is currently the case with the investigations and summary report?
Exam related
3. Should the exam assess the Inquiry and SHE strands and could this affect the coverage of the content?
4. If there is a Detailed Study, should it be assessed as part of the exam or internally assessed?
5. Should the weighting between internal and external assessment be changed?
The set of questions is also available at www.vicphysics.org/conf2014.html .
The groups will sit at tables based on geographical location to assist networking, and are planned to have a mixture of experienced and relatively new teachers to physics. With that purpose in mind the application form asks you to give an indication of the number of years you have been teaching physics. Your Name Tag will indicate your Table No. If you wish to assist the conference by chairing a discussion group contact the AIP at .
3. Australian Volunteers International: Teacher trainer - Physics wanted in Tanzania
http://www.australianvolunteers.com/10532657-teachers-trainer--physics-%28secondary-school%29.aspx
The college in Tanzania has requested an Australian volunteer to review current teaching methodology and identify areas needing improvements, as well as to mentor local teachers.
Ideally, the preferred candidate will have:
· Applied knowledge of lesson planning
· Demonstrated success in building the skills of others through formal and/or informal training and coaching
· Relevant degree in science
In addition volunteers need skills in training and developing others, applied awareness and sensitivity to cross-cultural communication, patience, tolerance and flexibility. They manage with good humour the daily challenges of working with very limited resources. If this request sounds like a good match for your skills and interest, please download the detailed Position Description from the link above. Aust Volunteers welcome calls to the recruitment team at any time – 1800 331 292.
4. Astronomy: Education, Outreach and Careers - Public Meeting 2pm - 4pm, 6th March, Swinburne University
This public meeting is directed to a wide range of people, ranging across professional astronomers, students, teachers, amateur astronomers, planetarium and museum staff and people involved in promoting astronomy at all levels.
Every 10 years the Australian professional astronomy community develops a Decadal Plan - a road map describing where we want Australian astronomy to go over the following decade. This process is widely seen to be a key part of the success of astronomy in this country. It involves a number of Working Groups reviewing all aspects of astronomy.
Working Group 3.2 is concerned with Education, Outreach and Careers - key aspects of our science that engage a wide range of participants, well beyond the professional astronomy community. They are seeking input to understand how best to promote astronomical education in schools, in the public, and in training new generations of professional astronomers.
With this in mind, they are planning a series of 'Town Hall' meetings where you can come along and provide your input and comments. These meetings will be both physical (come in person) and virtual (attend on-line or by phone from anywhere in the country). WG3.2 expects to have 4 meetings across the country in the next two months: 18th February in Sydney, 6th March in Melbourne, late March in Canberra, 15th April in Perth.
You are welcome to participate in one or all of these meetings. They hoped to get a few teachers involved.
The Melbourne meeting is on 6th March, 2.00pm-4.00pm, in the Virtual Reality Theatre at Swinburne University. The contact isVirginia Kilborn <>.
Sydney meeting will be on from 3.30 to 5:00pm. If you wish to be involved, either on-line or by phone, please contact John O'Byrne ().
For reference, the recommendations made in the ‘2006 – 2015 Decadal Plan for Australian Astronomy’ and 2011' Mid-Term Review’ were:
· Professional astronomers need to work more closely with public facilities (like planetaria, observatories, museums and science discovery centre’s) and amateurgroups to:
· Assist with the delivery of programs that target school students and teachers;
· Assist with the delivery of programs that target under-served groups, such as those living in outer metropolitan, regional and remote areas; Indigenouscommunities; people for whom English is a second language; and people who are disabled or have limited mobility;
· Raise awareness among young people of opportunities in science and research; and
· Promote science and astronomy to a wider audience.
They would also welcome written feedback (submitted to amanda.bauer @aao.gov.au), whether you attend a meeting or not.
5. Forthcoming events for Students and General Public *
a) Physics Days at Luna Park with Roulette Display - 4th - 6th March, 2014
Bookings are now open for the Physics Days at Luna Park. The dates are Tuesday, 4th March, Wednesday, 5th March and Thursday, 6th March. There will be no fourth day this year. Weds 5th is fully booked.
There will an aerobatic display by one of the RAAF Roulette team on each morning at 10:00m above the St Kilda Foreshore across the road from Luna Park. There will be representative of the Roulette team in Luna Park during the day to answer queries for teachers and students. A representative of Defense Recruiting will also be present on each day.
The cost is $23.95 per student, teachers can ride for free. Worksheets, including ones for the aerobatic display can be downloaded at http://www.vicphysics.org/lunaworksheets.html. Note: The G-Force ride has been replaced by a ride that combines the movements of the Spider with those of the Enterprise, which makes for a complicated ride from a physics point of view and a worksheet has not been prepared for this ride. The water ride that is currently replacing the Metropolis ride is only temporary for Summer. It is not known if there will be a replacement by March.
Dataloggers can be booked through the AIP. Email the AIP at , specifying day, brand (either Pasco or Vernier) and AM or PM. Note: there is a limit of one datalogger per school.
To make a booking: You can either phone Luna Park on 03 9525 5033, fax them at 03 9534 5764 or email Hayley Cairns at . Please give your name and contact details, school name, number of students and the date. Luna Park will invoice the school once actual numbers are counted on the day.
Country schools wishing to make a day of it, can book an hour excursion of the Australian Synchrotron in the late afternoon by emailing them at .
6. Physics News from the Web
Items selected from the bulletins of the Institute of Physics (UK) and the American Institute of Physics.
Each item below includes the introductory paragraphs and a web link to the rest of the article.
a) Thermal technique improves blood-flow measurements
b) Locust eardrum is a tiny frequency analyser
c) IceCube finds cosmic neutrinos at the South Pole
a) Thermal technique improves blood-flow measurements
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2013/nov/13/thermal-technique-improves-blood-flow-measurements
A new method for imaging the flow of blood has been developed by researchers in the US. By using ultrasound to thermally tag blood, along with photoacoustics to image the resulting heat flow, the new technique is considerably more sensitive than the conventional Doppler ultrasound method that is currently used. While presently at the in vitro testing stage, this technique might have a variety of clinical applications, especially in medical diagnosis.
b) Locust eardrum is a tiny frequency analyser
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2013/nov/12/locust-eardrum-is-a-tiny-frequency-analyser
Locusts have a highly integrated and miniaturized hearing system that bears little resemblance to either the human ear or an electronic microphone. That is the conclusion of researchers in the UK who have done a detailed study of how the insects detect and process sounds. The insect's hearing system, which makes use of a nanostructured eardrum to discern between high- and low-frequency sounds, could provide inspiration for the development of tiny microphones or systems for processing human speech.
c) IceCube finds cosmic neutrinos at the South Pole
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2013/nov/21/icecube-finds-cosmic-neutrinos-at-the-south-pole
An enormous "telescope" buried deep under the ice of Antarctica has made the first observation of cosmic neutrinos. The international collaboration operating the IceCube laboratory says that the detection of these chargeless, almost massless and very high-energy particles marks the beginning of a new era in astronomy in which electromagnetic radiation is no longer the only means we have for probing the distant universe.
Detecting neutrinos from space is not new. For decades physicists have been able to observe the neutrinos generated by nuclear reactions inside the Sun, as well as those produced by cosmic rays interacting with nuclei in the Earth's atmosphere. But neutrinos from further afield have until now remained elusive, their extremely high energies making them rarer and much harder to detect than those from closer to home.