The Education Corner

2010 PTEC Conference

The 2010 Physics Teacher Education Coalition (PTEC) Annual Conference will be held on February 12 and 13 in Washington, DC, in conjunction with the APS “April” Meeting, the AAPT Winter Meeting, and the National Society of Black Physicists/National Society of Hispanic Physicists Joint Annual Meeting. The theme of the conference will be “Diversity in Physics Education: Preparing Teachers for the 21st Century.” National leaders in physics teacher education will lead workshops focusing on:

• Diversity in teacher recruitment
• Preparing teachers for urban schools
• Closing the achievement gap
• Funding teacher education programs
• Collaborating across the sciences
• Teaching pedagogical knowledge

The conference will also feature the first release of findings from the joint APS/AAPT/AIP Task Force on Teacher Education in Physics, in addition to several plenary talks, a contributed poster session, and time for informal collaboration and networking.
   PTEC Conference and Registration Information

Upcoming Events

High School Physics Teachers Days

The APS Education and Diversity Department will run its annual High School Physics Teachers Days at the upcoming joint APS “April” Meeting/AAPT Winter Meeting in Washington, DC and the APS March Meeting in Portland, OR. Teachers Days offer presentations on physics research, hands-on workshops on teaching, and lunch with physicists–all at no cost to teachers. By bringing teachers and physicists together, APS hopes to encourage collaborations between these two groups. Physicists in the Washington or Portland areas are invited to attend the Teachers Day lunch at their respective local meeting. To sign up, please send an email to Ed Lee at lee@aps.org.

High School Laser Activity

The April Meeting Teachers Day, which is co-sponsored by AAPT, will feature the debut of a unit of laser activities for high school physics students, which was developed by APS staff as part of LaserFest. Working with laser pointers, participants will investigate the properties of laser light, explore a few of its applications, and work through the PhET laser simulation developed at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Participating teachers will receive kits of workshop materials. The workshop will also be offered at the March Meeting Teachers Day and other APS meetings next year.

Future Physicist Days

APS, the Society of Physics Students (SPS), and the Council of Undergraduate Research (CUR) jointly run Future Physicist Days for undergraduates who attend the APS March and April Meetings. The program includes a welcome lunch featuring presentations on physics careers; sessions of undergraduate oral and poster research presentations; and an awards reception featuring SPS’s Physics Jeopardy!™  Undergraduate registration at both these meetings is free, and travel supplements of $200 are available for undergraduates who present at the meetings.
   Future Physicist Days.
 
Minority Scholarship Program

APS is proud to offer once again its Scholarship for Minority Undergraduate Physics Majors, which provides both funding and significant mentoring to selected under-represented minority students. Any African-American, Hispanic-American, or Native American US citizen or permanent legal resident who is majoring or plans to major in physics and who is a high school senior, college freshman, or college sophomore is eligible to apply. The application for 2010-2011 scholars can be found at APS Minority Scholarship and is due February 5, 2010. APS encourages faculty members and high school teachers to alert their eligible students to this opportunity.