Societies
Magic or physics?
by Sina Kniseley
pdf version of this article
The third-year student crouched down as a
thunderous roar filled the air. Screams of
other students rang in her ears and her hands
trembled, but she held her ground.
If this sounds like a few lines from J. K.
Rowling’s latest Harry Potter novel, think
again. It actually describes a physics student
participating in Physics Day at Six
Flags America in Landover, Maryland (Figure
1). Meaghan George, a student at Hammond
High School (Columbia, MD), found
that participating in Physics Day changed
how she views the science. “It’s hard to see
how some other sciences, such as chemistry,
apply to your real life,” she says.
 “Physics
Day showed real-life applications, such as how force and gravity
impact you as you go upside down in a roller coaster.” For
several years, the American Association
of Physics Teachers (AAPT) has worked with Six Flags staff.
“Spending Physics Day at the park gives students a new insight
into something they may have done all their lives,” says Mike
Sivell, an AAPT member and physics teacher at Hammond. “They
gain an understanding of what it took to develop the rides, and
realize that someone had to study physics to do that.”
 |
| Figure 1. Some students who participate
in Physics Day at Six Flags America are prevented from flying off the carousel
by centripetal force (above), while others listen for the fundamental and harmonic
frequencies of the rotating tube (right) |
“An understanding of physics is liberating,”
says Bernard Khoury, AAPT executive
officer. “If you understand physics, the world
makes a lot of sense. Physics shows that
things do not happen because of magic, but
because of systematic, guided principles.”
The association’s mission is to enhance the
appreciation and understanding of physics
through teaching, and its members want to
help others understand physics and the benefits
that a physics background offers. People often think AAPT is composed exclusively of high-school teachers. In
reality, the association’s 10,300-plus members range from
high-school teachers to university faculty. AAPT is the only professional
society of educators to represent members who teach at such a broad
range of educational levels. It is not uncommon at its two annual
national meetings to see Nobel laureates talking informally with
students or educators (Figure 2). The meeting program and many AAPT
information pieces do not show degree designations, because the
association actively promotes interactions among people who teach
at different educational levels.
“AAPT’s greatest strength is our ability to
bring together diverse values and viewpoints
within the physics community,” says Khoury.
In 1930, a group of university professors,
unhappy with the lack of attention paid to
education by the American Physical Society,
formed AAPT. For the first three years of its
existence, the association limited membership
to those who taught at the college level,
and for its first four decades, membership in
AAPT required two current members as
sponsors and approval by the executive committee.
In 1970, the association eliminated
the sponsorship and approval requirements
and allowed anyone with an interest to join.
 Today,
AAPT’s membership includes fouryear and university faculty
(30.2%), highschool faculty (30.2%), two-year college faculty (6.7%),
students (5.5%), and employees in industry (3%). The remaining 25%
of members include retirees, government and nonprofit laboratory
workers, and instructional resource specialists.
To serve
such a
diverse membership, the association has an
active publishing program and has developed
a broad range of programs for its members.
In addition to those for professionals,
the association also focuses on programs for
nonscientists, particularly students. Its 46
local sections organize meetings and programs
for their members.
AAPT publishes two journals—the American
Journal of Physics and The Physics Teacher—
as well as the Announcer, a quarterly magazine,
and several books each year. Currently,
about 100 AAPT titles are available. They
range from Biological Effects of Low-Frequency
Electromagnetic Fields, to Global Warming, toThe Role of Toys in Teaching Physics.
“One of the biggest challenges
facing AAPT is how to leverage
limited resources and limited energy
to deal with very important
issues,” says Khoury. To do so, the
association has developed a set of
seven strategic priorities to guide
its actions (see box). One of its
priorities is Physics for All, based
on the principle that all students
can learn physics. “The key is to
acknowledge that it is our responsibility
to teach the subject in a
way and at a level that meets the
needs and interests of all students,
not just the very best,” says Khoury.
Programs such as Physics Day
can help broaden the appeal of
physics classes. Five years ago,
Hammond High School offered
three sections of physics for gifted and talented
students, and one section for others.
In the 2004–2005 academic year, Hammond
offered three sections for the gifted and talented,
two sections for others, one Advanced
Placement section, and one astronomy class.
“Physics Day has really helped with enrollment
in physics because the kids come back
talking about the fun they had,” Sivell says.
Two other student programs are the AAPT
Physics Bowl and the U.S. Physics Team.
Both programs give students competitive
exams, but the similarity ends there. In the
AAPT Physics Bowl, 10,000 students compete
in one of two divisions, each with 15
regions. Corporate sponsors, such as Texas
Instruments and Frey Scientific, donate
prizes for students and teachers participating
in the competition.
In the U.S. Physics Team competition,
1,400 students in the United States take the
exam. More exams are given until the field is
narrowed to the top 24 students. These students
attend an intensive 10-day training
camp at the University of Maryland. The top
five students are then selected to represent
the United States at the annual International
Physics Olympiad, which began in 1965 as a
competition among European nations. The
United States has participated since 1986.
AAPT administers the U.S. Physics Team
program, which is financially supported by
the American Institute of Physics and by
donations from association, corporate, and
individual sponsors. In 2003, three team
members received gold medals and two
received silver medals in the international
competition, held in Taipei, Taiwan.
Although the competition is among individuals,
a summary of scores showed that the
United States was the top-ranking country
out of the 54 nations participating.
In addition to programs for students,
AAPT offers programs for educators at all
levels. Two such programs target three other
AAPT strategic priorities: teacher preparation,
assisting crossover teachers (those
trained in other disciplines who teach
physics), and disseminating research on
how to best teach physics.
The New Faculty Workshop draws raves
from college and university department
chairs. The annual workshop teaches
tenure-track appointees how students learn
physics and astronomy, and how an understanding
of this learning process can
improve a new professor’s teaching methods.
The National Science Foundation
(NSF) funds this and the PTRA program.
The Physics Teaching Resource Agents
(PTRA) program is geared to high-school
teachers. Leaders at annual five-day institutes
help participants develop teaching
skills on specific physics topics. They also
train participants to conduct workshops for
other teachers. An analysis of the results of
the Third International Mathematics and
Science Study 1999—the second assessment
in a series of studies to measure
trends in students’ mathematics and science
achievement—shows that students
taught by teachers who have gone through
NSF-funded training programs, such as
PTRA, demonstrate a greater understanding
of science than their peers.
Many of these students go on to pursue
physics degrees. Some become educators,
and some choose corporate careers. “One
of the unfortunate things that happens in
the corporate world is that few people have
the title of physicist,” says Khoury. “This
obscures the impact of physics in the real
world. If we can find a way to make it more
obvious how a physics background can
help someone become a successful professional,
that would be good.”
One way to show others how a physics
background is useful in corporate work
would be to form connections between corporations
and educators. If teachers can see
what happens in industry, if they can learn
about the latest uses of technology, they can
enhance their effectiveness. “They can get
students to recognize that physics has practical
aspects in their own community, and
they can make their classes relevant to a
student’s future,” Khoury says.
Another way to create a partnership is
the Six Flags Physics Day model. Here, the
focus is not on connecting teachers with
corporate employees who have a physics
background but on creating an appreciation
of the role physics plays in everyday life and
an understanding that there are scientific,
not magical, explanations for how things
work. “Physics Day is a really effective
opportunity to form a connection between
a teacher, a school, and a community,”
Khoury says. “And it might even help create
a future physicist.”
To learn more about AAPT, contact Warren
Hein, AAPT’s associate executive officer, at
301-209-3311 or whein@aapt.org.
Biography Sina Kniseley is director of communications
for the American Association of Physics
Teachers in College Park, Maryland |
