The Blog of Phyz

What time should high school start?

2012-01-29T21:35:00.000-08:00

When I came to Rio Americano High School in 1986, school started at 8:10am. That's when "2nd period" started. First period was for a few early-risers and bus-riders. At some point, 1st period became zero period so that first period was when the day began for most of the school.

Transportation (bussing) then required that we move the start time to 8:00am. State/district requirements for teaching minutes then moved the start of the school day to 7:50am. Recently, the district essentially ended its transportation services. We still start school at 7:50am. But now it's out of inertial tradition rather than transportation necessity.

A group of concerned parents tried to lobby the school district to move the start of school to a later time. The district waved them off, telling them to focus their attention on our school as a pilot project, and then take it from there.

The parents gathered the current research on the topic and presented it to parents, administrators, and faculty. The research was compelling. There were positive outcomes wherever schools moved the start of school to a later time. None of the schools that delayed start times ever went back to earlier start times.

But moving the school start time required approval of the faculty per their bargaining agreement with the district.

Concerns were raised about potential impact on athletics. Concerns were raised about personal scheduling inconveniences. Many simply didn't believe the body of research. Nobody could find research that showed negative consequences to delaying the start of school. All of the concerns that were raised had been dealt with at other schools when they delayed their start times.

I compiled a resource page of pros, cons, and rebuttals.

I found the arguments in favor compelling in terms of student gains. I found the arguments against to be unrelated to student achievement. To me it was a matter of moving school to where the students were.

The proposal was to try a modified schedule for two years. The modification was to move the school schedule by 30 minutes (the minimum change recommended by the research).

The faculty rejected the proposal; a minority of 43% voted in favor of the proposal.

In informal polls, students, staff, and parents rejected the proposal by varying margins. The status quo is a powerful thing. Much more powerful than academic and medical research.

Interestingly, high-performing Gunn High School in Palo Alto recently changed their schedule to delay the start of school. It appears this was a district initiative rather than a faculty-spproved measure. The Gunn approach might be the only way to overcome school schedule inertia.

We Van de Graaffed today

2012-01-24T17:06:00.000-08:00

"PODH," you say? Fair enough. Click the pic to see more.

PTSOS2: Don't miss the heat wave this Saturday

2012-01-22T12:00:00.000-08:00

It's not too late to join the PTSOS party in Sacramento this Saturday, 1/28/12. The forecast calls for a heat wave. A physical heat wave.

We'll start with coffee donuts, etc., as we do. Then it's off to heat and thermodynamics. Kinetic Theory will be demonstrated with baby food jars.

The ball and ring will be fully exploited and extended to what we call "Leidenball."

The improperly-named "radiometer" will be leveraged (and its more correct name revealed). What good is a bimetallic strip? Ove-gloves? Food coloring? Is a Miracle Thaw really miraculous? We'll see!

All this and more before we even get to lunch. We'll literally fire up Steve's Ruben's Tube to connect morning and afternoon topics.

After lunch, we'll delve into the wonderful world of waves: mechanical waves and sound, specifically. We'll slow a tuning fork to a crawl (if not a stop), make a plastic tape talk, whirl a singing pipe (and ponder the meaning of its song), and fact-check the tagline from Alien.We'll use high-tech to "see" sound and low-tech to measure its speed.

It's a day of demos and labs and presos. And goodie bags, oh my!

To get in on this extravaganza, send an email to PTSOS Outreach Coordinator, Stephanie Finander, at sfinander@sbcglobal.net. She'll send you the details. One important detail is that PTSOS workshops are free of charge (even the next one, where we discuss electrostatics). Lunch is sponsored by CENCO/Sargent-Welch and other food and "goodies" are provided by the Karl Brown Memorial Scholarship Fund.

PTSOS is sponsored by the Northern California and Nevada section of the American Association of Physics Teachers and made possible by a grant from the Karl Brown Memorial Scholarship Fund.

Textbooks have a future—paper, not so much

2012-01-22T09:00:00.000-08:00

The day the iPad was announced in 2010, I printed out Apple's product description and brought it to a school administrator with the comment, "We should start thinking about repurposing the textbook storage room." That particular VP was more pragmatist than visionary and was completely immune to Steve Jobs' Reality Distortion Field. So be it.

I waited for the third iteration of the iPhone (3GS) before jumping into that pool. My 2005 candybar Nokia was all the cell phone I needed until 2009. I planned on waiting for the iPad 2 until I discovered some utility for the iPad during the summer of 2010.

When my principal found out I had one, he expressed an interest in piloting classroom use. Suddenly I was the pragmatist. "Not yet," I replied, "let's let others work out the bugs and wait for the app market to expand."

With Apple's recent announcement of iBooks textbooks for iPad and iBooks Author, many of the classroom-use bugs seem to be getting worked out. The big publishing houses seem to be on board with post-paper textbooks. I'll nourish a hope that the good people at PhET engineer a way to migrate from the dead-end of Flash toward modern, iPad-friendly software.

Frank Noschese over at Action-Reaction has a nicely robust vision of what an iBook textbook for physics might include. Frank's vision looks good to me, but I don't expect it to come in one tidy package. More likely teachers will need to cobble together apps and weblinks on their own and get them configured on student tablets.

The promise of iPad textbooks is great. There are obstacles to overcome, but when has it not been thus. I will not miss paper textbooks (I say that because I know some who will). And I have no idea what will become of our voluminous textbook storage room, but I do look forward to its repurposing.

Edited to Add: Some people think iPads in education are a flash-in-the-pan, flavor-of-the-month, pie-in-the-sky (etc.) boondoggle dreamt up by educrats and salespeople. "Is there any evidence that these things actually help kids learn?" That question is often rhetorical, because any evidence offered will be rejected in favor of a negative personal opinion (see the post below for more on that).

Knowing that iPads have not yet existed for two academic years, the question-as-criticism is easy to level. Even if iPads do help, there hasn't likely been enough time to develop the software or test its efficacy among real students in real schools.

Until last week, that is. That's when the findings of a pilot program in Amelia Earhart Middle School in California's Riverside Unified School District were announced.

Some students underwent traditional instruction using the best practices known to the school's veteran teachers. Other students used iPads with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's Fuse: Algebra 1 in conjunction with their instruction.

Fifty-nine percent of students in the traditional group earned scores of Advanced or Proficient on the California Standards Test in Algebra 1. But 78% of students using the iPads with the HMH app scored Advanced or Proficient on the same test. The difference is significant.

Hat tip: AppleInsider.

Introducing NCSE Climate Science

2012-01-22T06:00:00.000-08:00

The good people at the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) have been promoting and defending the teaching of evolution in science classes for years. Despite a river of court rulings that favor the unfettered instruction of evolution in science classes, the practice remains under attack (usually by misguided boards of education), so NCSE is always busy.

As climate change debate has grown during recent years, the people at NCSE noticed parallels between evolution denialism (a.k.a. "creationism" or "intelligent design") and climate change denialism. Deniers reject mainstream scientific community consensus is favor of strongly-held personal opinions, and they actively seek to impose their positions on public school science instruction, among other things. Deniers demand that science curricula teach "both sides" of the issue at hand. They want the fact-based, scientific lessons to be balanced with fringe group, political/religious doctrine.

Science teachers generally prefer to stick to science. But in doing so, they may find themselves embroiled in controversy. This is where NCSE comes in. They marshall resources in defense on science-based science curriculum, arming teachers are parents everywhere with the latest information on how best to fend off attacks from deniers.

While NCSE has been involved in the creationism debate since its inception, it added climate science to its agenda just last week.

NCSE Executive Director, Dr. Eugenie Scott, is an intelligent, battle-tested expert in the evolution/creationism debate. Mark McCaffrey is NCSE's point man on climate science.

One particularly handy resource that NCSE links to is Skeptical Science. Skeptical Science has a brilliant page (and an iOS/Android app) that refutes popular climate science denial myths.

Why I am not a Modeler, part 2

2012-01-16T12:00:00.000-08:00

The page views and thoughtful comments for last week's modeling post were encouraging.

I want to follow up, but I'm going to indulge my blogging privileges to respond in a series of uncoordinated, seemingly scattered thoughts. If I wait to coalesce them into a unified, well-crafted essay, I fear I'll lose some of them. The essay may be written someday. But not today. Apologies for the lack of polish.

General. The title of the previous modeling post was carefully considered and deliberate: "Why I am not a Modeler." That's the extent of the scope. As stated in the post, it was not an attack on Modeling Instruction. It was not titled, "Why modeling is awful and shouldn't ever be adopted by anyone anywhere." If you like it and it works for you, felicitations! I am glad you have found your path. I'm choosing to walk a different path. I hope we can still be friends.

I rejected "traditional" instruction long ago. We don't have lecture so much as we have guided discussions. We've never done a "Prove that g = 9.8 m/s^2" lab. Otherwise simple demonstrations may keep us occupied for a full period of discussion and debate. We tend to do something different every day of the week. I would hate for anyone to interpret my reservations about modeling as support of "traditional" instruction.

Modeling Instruction is a successful, well-organized program with hard-earned and well-deserved National Science Foundation support. But it's not for everybody. If my reservations resonate with others, these posts may be the only place they've seen doubts about modeling expressed in a public forum.

Mechanics. I am aware that there are some modeling units devoted to "second semester physics." (My attempts to see them have not been successful.) But I take anecdotal references to a teacher here or there who goes significantly beyond mechanics as evidence to support my thesis that modelers by and large stick to mechanics. Exceptions that prove the rule.

Sure, most modeling workshops focus on mechanics for legitimate logistical reasons. But I don't see compelling evidence of practicing modelers "in the wild," actively teaching physics in real, NCLB-era high schools, who get to heat and thermo, electricity and magnetism, sound and light, or blue skies and rainbows. If there are modelers who approach the level of coverage tested by the state of California, I'd like to hear about it.

Modeling instruction has been a going concern since the mid-nineties. Whenever I ask to see the modeling units on electricity and magnetism (especially magnetism), I'm told that such units are still under construction and, unlike the voluminous material in mechanics, aren't ready for distribution yet. So I'll ask: When will they be ready? It's now 2012. If magnetism couldn't be cracked in the first decade, will it be by the end of the second?

I'm repeatedly told that mechanics exceeds the limits of first semester is that modeling instruction is a slower, more deliberate process. Accepted. With that in mind, it seems the thing to do is to eliminate some topics in mechanics from the yearlong curriculum. Students don't need full mastery of algebraic and graphical kinematics to grasp Newton's laws of motion. How about ditching the reflexive (dare I say "traditional"?) impulse to devote a month to six weeks pounding 1-D and 2-D kinematics? Do I now appear to be someone who just grew a second head?

Cultishness. I might have been misunderstood here. And that's at least partially my fault. I would never accuse modelers of reclusiveness or trying to exclude others from the fold. In my experience, modelers are ever eager to encourage "converts." There's nothing wrong with that. But I go to a lot of meetings and conferences where enthusiastic modelers are keen to share the Good News. After the first decade, it takes its toll.

I worry that modelers feel entitled to reject the science standards adopted by their state in favor of what they learned to do in Arizona. The broad coverage required by states is dismissed as being "a mile wide and an inch deep." (Curiously, no one never dismisses a program for being "an inch wide and a mile deep." Though both would constitute the same area, only the "mile wide" is universally understood as derogative.)

In any case, I wonder if modelers feel justified in rejecting state mandates in favor of modeling mechanics because the approach, philosophy, and demonstrated FCI gains of modeling constitute a "Higher Authority" than state standards. (Can modeling physics teachers hope to make this argument while intelligent design biology teachers don't?)

I'm a physics teacher. I get it. Ours is very much a "cowboy culture." No one in statewide educational administrivia knows better than me what I should be teaching. I know what's best for my students, and that's what I'm gonna do—state education bureaucrats be damned. Add to that one's sense that I'm doing what professors would like me to do to prep students for their college course, and there's no looking back.

Except that we don't work for college professors. If you've worked to expand your physics enrollment, most of your students will never take physics at college. Your course is the one and only physics course they will ever take. I generally reject "they'll need it for their college physics course" as sole justification for anything I do in my high school physics course.

There is no consensus on what college physics professors would like high school physics teachers to teach. The answer I here most often is, "Just get them excited about science." Nothing wrong with that per se. But it can come across as, "Don't teach them any actual content; leave that to us." OK, except that content can be all kinds of fun. And...

I do work—in essence—for the state of California. And California has told me what content it expects my physics students to learn. California pays me to provide the instruction and California assesses my students' learning. While California and I don't see eye to eye on all the details, I have an aversion to telling California to stick it because me and my friends know better.

One sentiment often comes up when I express my reservations about modeling. "Keep an open mind." As a non-theist who grew up among theists, and as a skeptic who lives among the credulous, I have found that you will never be asked to keep an open mind by someone who actually has one. And the sentiment is directed only to outsiders. Upon arrival at the "right" conclusion, one is free to close one's mind. (Don't get me wrong: I treasure my close friendships with those who do not share in my beliefs/lack of belief. No one who knows me would characterize me as a bitter, curmudgeonly recluse!)

I would like to think my mind is very open, but that I reserve the right to question and probe, to evaluate and critique, and to accept or reject. I don't regard myself as a cynic, but I do confess some admiration for Diogenes.

As mentioned previously, I don't presume to have worked out the singular set of best practices that ensures mastery of physics by every student who enrolls in my class. I struggle each year to improve. Some part of my aversion to modeling is that enthusiasts appear (to me) to be saying that they have solved a puzzle that I'm not sure has a simple solution.

Exclusion. I'm a big fan of PhET simulations. I use them as much as I can. PhET publishes "best practices" guidelines for how their sims should be used. I don't always follow their guidelines. But they let me use their sims, anyway. They even let me publish my PhET activities to their site, whether or not they follow PhET's carefully delineated prescription.

A visit to the Modeling Curriculum page reveals that there is some content available to all who seek, but some content is available only to those who ~~know the secret handshake~~ have been through the workshop training. This is not a matter of keeping answer keys from students (as is the practice at Pretty Good Physics).

I hope someone with access will explain why those of us without access are undeserving. While I try to presume a reasonable answer exists, I have misgivings. Can we (the non-workshopped) not be trusted with this curriculum? Will we misuse it and bring shame to the practice of modeling? The good people at PhET love their babies (sims) but allow unfettered access to everyone. I'm hard-pressed to imagine curriculum material that's so dangerous it must be password-protected from physics teachers.

You heard it here first: The drought will soon be over

2012-01-15T11:02:00.000-08:00

The snow pack in Northern California is low to non-existent this year. Some sites where snow core samples are usually taken remain free of any snow, whatsoever. Tioga Pass Road from Yosemite to Lee Vining, usually closed from November through May, is open to traffic. If you had ever hoped to ice-skate on Yosemite's Tenaya Lake, now is the time!

But do it soon. Tioga Pass will soon be closed. Snow will accumulate in the mountains and rain will fall in the valleys.

This week, we begin our unit on electricity. I have found that there is no better way to bring the rain and humidity to otherwise dry Sacramento than to enter into our study of electrostatics.

In reality, we still get results adequate to see the effects we hope to see. And in most parts of the US, there is no better time than late January to study electrostatics. We're only immersed in triboelectricity for a few days before moving onto current electricity. And you don't need dry air for lemon batteries!

So ready your umbrellas and raincoats, Northern Californians. There will be rain aplenty by the end of the week.

Why I am not a Modeler

2012-01-09T06:00:00.000-08:00

Modeling Instruction is a big deal in high school physics. If there is a bigger movement afoot in high school physics pedagogy, I am unaware of it.

There is no shortage of praise for Modeling Instruction. It seems every article, post, or comment I see about Modeling promotes its virtues.

And don't get me wrong: I think there are important virtues to Modeling. I reserve the right to become a Modeler, myself, at some point in the future.

But I'm not there yet. And I'll tell you why.

1. Modeling Physics is really Modeling Mechanics. Whenever I see the yearlong breakdown of what Modelers do with their 180 days of instruction, it's nearly all about mechanics. I do not doubt that students of Modelers come away with a deep understanding of mechanics. But is their grasp of electricity, magnetism, heat, waves, and optics anywhere as firm? Modelers often dismiss the omission of these topics. I cannot. To me those topics are legitimate high school physics topics not to be marginalized. While physics learners may well harbor many misconceptions regarding mechanics, they tend to harbor no conceptions regarding electricity and magnetism.

If you visit the Modeling Instruction Summer 2011 Workshops page, you'll find as many mentions of "kinematics" as there are of "electricity" and "magnetism" combined. (And kinematics isn't even physics!) "Electricity" comes up three times, "magnetism" twice. "Mechanics" appears 28 times. The term, "light," comes up once and "waves" three times. Mechanics: 28.

I wonder if the performance gains claimed by Modelers are apples-to-apples comparisons in terms of instructional time. Modelers freely admit their methods are time-consuming. But the content-based performance gains are impressive. Are they comparing outcomes of one semester of traditional instruction to the two semesters of Modeling Instruction required to teach the equivalent amount of content? I ask because I do not know. I'll nourish the hope that someone will educate me via the comments.

2. The FCI is not the beacon from which all Truth radiates. The Force Concept Inventory (FCI) is ingenious. I love it! It shines light on the myriad flaws of "traditional" instruction. (Is there any term more derogatory than "traditional" in education?) There is some irony in that tradition-bucking Modelers use results from a multiple choice test to measure their success. There are some in education who find multiple choice tests to be incapable of measuring anything useful. I don't throw in with them, either. The FCI has excellent multiple choice questions. But I don't justify my curriculum by how various students have or haven't performed on a multiple choice mechanics test.

And if there is talk about CSEM (or equivalent) gains in Modeling Instruction, I haven't heard it.

3. The progression into any new topic seems a bit canned. Observe a prescribed phenomenon. Figure out how to make a graphical representation. Interpret the slope. Transpose axes; interpret. As an outsider, I could have it all wrong. But I prefer to let the content to be an important guide to instruction. My methodology for magnetism is different from that for motion.

4. As an "outsider," Modeling seems just a wee bit cultish. If this is my perception, alone, then it's my problem. But Modelers are the products of well-organized workshops in which they learn The Method. Once trained, they go forth and spread the good news. They tell joyful tales of how they used to be "traditional" but are now enthusiastic practitioners of The Method. The Method is not specific to physics, it can be applied to all sciences. Content is nice, but it's The Method that really matters.

Practitioners don't appear suffer much uncertainty regarding the superiority of The Method. Nor do they appear bothered by the physics content that is "left behind." A Modeling friend (great guy and great teacher) once assured me that Modeling teaches students how to think; physics is merely the delivery device. Me? I like physics! To me, physics is what we're painting, not just the canvas on which we paint.

In any case, I perceive an air of absolutism in the movement. And I find that disquieting. It's similar to the disquieting vibe I get from most Libertarians, who lace their certitude with impatience: "We've got it all figured out and why are you not already on board with us? Are you really that blind to the obvious?"

My fear in posting this note is that I will be labeled "anti-Modeling" and incur the wrath of the Modeling community. This post will be regarded as an attack. It's not. It is a list of my misgivings: the reasons I am not a Modeler. Maybe someday I will be a Modeler. And maybe I'll be happy when I am. (Then again, something chills me whenever I see "Number 12 Looks Just Like You." Scariest. Twilight Zone. Ever.) I may well make it to retirement never fully embracing Modeling.

If you think Modeling Instruction is the best use of the 180 days you get with physics students, I will make no attempt to take that away from you. I'm happy for you. I've decided on a different approach for my 180 days and hope not to be judged too harshly for that. I don't presume I've got it all figured out. If anything, I'm quite certain that I don't have it all figured out. I hope to do better next year than I did this year.

I've spent 25 years writing and rewriting and picking and choosing and polishing and smoothing. Much of what I do this year I will do again next year. But not everything. For what it's worth, a valued physics teaching colleague and enthusiastic proponent of Modeling, assured me that my curriculum and instruction—while not Modeling—bore little resemblance to the accursed "traditional" instruction that Modeling seeks to replace. So there's that.

Comments?

I'm done with heat and mechanics

2012-01-08T07:55:00.000-08:00

As we head into finals week, I'll note that we have completed our studies of heat and thermodynamics, energy and momentum, and motion and forces.

That is, we are done with 3 of the 5 academic content standards sets in 9-12 Physics in California.

The second semester is reserved for electric and magnetic phenomena and waves. Our unit titles at Rio are Electricity, Circuits, Electromagnetism, Waves, Light, and Wave Optics.

For a more complete accounting of our time in Physics 1, see "Statewide pacing guide—where you should be by now." For TMI, click the unit titles above.

Isaac Newton just pooped his pants?

2012-01-02T15:09:00.000-08:00

Maybe not. But Ørsted, Faraday, Ampère, and Maxwell are most likely smiling. And at $100, so are the Levitron's makers and resellers. Let me help them out by posting their ad for free.

Hat tip to Larry Auerbach via Facebook.

High-speed photography to get the year moving

2012-01-01T11:18:00.000-08:00

I don't do this stuff, myself. But Alan Sailer does it very well, indeed.

"A series of photos mostly taken with a home-built microsecond guided spark flash."

Take a look at http://flic.kr/s/aHsjnckLZ5

Hat tip to Kristjan Wager via Facebook.

You might be a physicist's child if...

2011-12-14T00:04:00.000-08:00

this ever happened to you.

Hat tip: Ray Hall.

Oh, this turns out to by my 500th post. And it looks like I'm about to hit 6 figures on the page views count. Who will be viewer 100,000? Oh, the suspense!

Study Debunks Myths About Gender and Math Performance

2011-12-13T06:49:00.000-08:00

ScienceDaily (Dec. 12, 2011) — A major study of recent international data on school mathematics performance casts doubt on some common assumptions about gender and math achievement -- in particular, the idea that girls and women have less ability due to a difference in biology.

Don't look for widespread coverage of this study in the mainstream media. The MSM prefers stories wherein hard-nosed science finds that there are important biological brain differences between the genders. The narrative is then, "Why look, the old adage about 'snips and snails' vs. 'sugar and spice' turns out to be true, after all. Science proves it!"

The linked article above includes sidebar links to great stories related to this ongoing debate. The widely accepted stereotypes that boys are better at math while girls are better at language have no basis in biology.

Iceland observations - independence and isolation

2011-12-04T06:00:00.000-08:00

Ski week is a dangerous time for me. I rarely do much traveling, and that leaves me idle to search out summer travel opportunities. This year I found a photographer trip to Iceland offered by Andy Long of First Light Tours.

Iceland is known as a wonderland to landscape and nature photographers. It had been on my list for some time. I wanted to go, but I wanted to go with photographers. The First Light trip was a match, so I proceeded to book it.

Andy Long is a Colorado-based nature photographer who runs a variety of destination workshops every year. He partnered with Michael Kissane of f-Stop Tours in Iceland. Kissane was born and raised in St. Louis, but has lived in Iceland for several years. He's even fluent in Icelandic, and that's no mean feat.

The photo tour was June 24-July 2. I scheduled two additional nights in Reykjavik to extend my stay.

The forecast for Iceland was for temperatures in the 45°F–55°F, overcast with rain. I geared up and packed appropriately. David duChemin's observations in Iceland: A Monograph (iPad app) compelled me to upgrade my tripod. I did a bit of preparatory studying with Insight Guides' Iceland and Profilm's Iceland's Favorite Places.

The journey to Iceland was eventful due to less than professional performance by Delta Airlines. An FAA-imposed weather delay somehow resulted in a loss of my booked seat on the NY to Reykjavik leg of the trip. I'm sure I was supposed to count my lucky stars that I was able to score a bulkhead middle seat in place of the window seat I booked months earlier.

Upon arrival in Iceland, the group (6 photographers and 2 guides) was assembled and whisked off to Gardskaga, our initial shooting location. We got some bird shots, a couple of landscapes and a trip to the Seltún geothermal site in before dinner and rest in Reykjavik. This time of year the sun goes down at midnight and rises at 3am in Iceland. The sky goes somewhat dim, but never dark.

On Day 2, we journeyed north to Hraunfoss (Lava Falls) and Barnafoss (Children's Falls) (yeah, there's an unhappy story that goes with that name). before bedding down in Borgarnes.

On Day 3 day we hopped a ferry to Flatey (Flat Island) out in the Breiðafjörður Fjord. We spent our time on the island shooting birds and a bit of architecture. We returned and made our way to Arnarstapi for terns, fulmars, and a stone cold giant.

On Day 4 we headed for Þingvellir, a site of Icelandic historical significance and where you can straddle two continental plates (North American and Eurasian). From there, it was off to Geysir to take a shot at Strokkur geyser's pre-eruption hot water dome. Yellowstone has a better concentration of wild geothermal features, but I've never seen a geyser erupt like this one. Next was the thunder and mist Gullfoss (Gold Falls). We also took in a curious red-rock crater lake.

On Day 5 we spent some time in chilly solitude at the nicely appointed Flói Nature Reserve before stopping at Selfoss for lunch supplies and Sirius Konsum chocolate. Then it was off to Seljalandsfoss, an delicate, isolated, but popular waterfall. A slick, rocky, muddy, wet trail led around to the back side of the falls. Keeping gear dry and legs underneath were challenges, but image potential was great. Then to Skogafoss, a broader, louder, more popular falls. Then to Vík and Black Beach.

On Day 6 we got some morning puffin shots, then it was in to Jökulsárlón, a glacial lagoon. This was a treasure of great wonder; it was like a dynamic Bryce Canyon. More blue than red, but also in motion. We toured the lagoon in an open-air amphibious waterbus. Later we had a hay-wagon ride six kilometers across a tidal flat to Ingólfshöfði, a reserve that is home to great skua, razorbills, and puffins.

On Day 7 we went to Skaftafell National Park. We were able to hike out to the toe of Skaftafellsjökull. It was a nice trail through moss-covered rocky terrain. We missed Svartifoss somehow. I don't remember why.

On Day 8 we headed back to Reykjavik, retracing our route along the southern segment of Iceland's Ring Road and stopping here and there for pictures, lunch, and chocolate.

On Day 9 the photographer tour was over, but I stayed behind to wander the streets of the city. I got some nice architecture and graffiti shots.

On Day 10, I toured Þórsmörk with an small group and a local guide with a SuperJeep. It was nice to work up into the interior a bit. More of a nature tour than a treasure-trove of photo-ops.

Day 11 it was back to the US, California, and Sacramento. I saw a lot of Iceland and was lucky to have knowledgable guides. But I often felt a bit rushed (because I am, by nature, slow and deliberate). I'm sure the others considered me an impossible slow-poke daudler forever holding up the program.

I'd love to get back to Iceland; I feel like I missed more than I saw. I missed the Bare Landscapes fine art photography gallery exhibition by a few days.

My Iceland finalists photo album is on Flickr.

Richard Wiseman's 30 quirky holiday party tricks

2011-11-27T23:00:00.000-08:00

Holiday parties are right around the corner. So start practicing your quirky party tricks now!

2011

2010

2009

The quirkiness never ends at Richard Wiseman's blog.

UC Davis physics faculty call for Chancellor to resign

2011-11-22T20:15:00.000-08:00

From Cosmic Variance:

Chancellor Linda Katehi
November 22, 2011
UC Davis

Dear Chancellor Katehi:
With a heavy heart and substantial deliberation, we the undersigned faculty of the UC Davis physics department send you this letter expressing our lack of confidence in your leadership and calling for your prompt resignation in the wake of the outrageous, unnecessary, and brutal pepper spraying episode on campus Friday, Nov. 18.

The reasons for this are as follows.

• The demonstrations were nonviolent, and the student encampments posed no threat to the university community. The outcomes of sending in police in Oakland, Berkeley, New York City, Portland, and Seattle should have led you to exhaust all other options before resorting to police action.

• Authorizing force after a single day of encampments constitutes a gross violation of the UC Davis principles of community, especially the commitment to civility: “We affirm the right of freedom of expression within our community and affirm our commitment to the highest standards of civility and decency towards all.”

• Your response in the aftermath of these incidents has failed to restore trust in your leadership in the university community.

We have appreciated your leadership during these difficult times on working to maintain and enhance excellence at UC Davis. However, this incident and the inadequacy of your response to it has already irreparably damaged the image of UC Davis and caused the faculty, students, parents, and alumni of UC Davis to lose confidence in your leadership. At this point we feel that the best thing that you can do for this university is to take full responsibility and resign immediately. Our campus community deserves a fresh start.

Sincerely,
Andreas Albrecht (chair)
Marusa Bradac
Steve Carlip
Hsin-Chia Cheng
Maxwell Chertok
John Conway
Daniel Cox
James P. Crutchfield
Glen Erickson
Chris Fassnacht
Daniel Ferenc
Ching Fong
Giulia Galli
Nemanja Kaloper
Joe Kiskis
Lloyd Knox
Dick Lander
Lori Lubin
Markus Luty
Michael Mulhearn
David Pellett
Wendell Potter
Sergey Savrasov
Richard Scalettar
Robert Svoboda
John Terning
Mani Tripathi
David Webb
David Wittman
Dong Yu
Gergely Zimanyi

Power Balance-type products continue to THRIVE

2011-11-22T10:10:00.000-08:00

Power Balance hit a rough patch yesterday. Nice to see that the Sacramento Kings, who are owed $100,000 from Power Balance, still believe in the snake-oil merchant. Kings owners, the Maloofs, have been accused of many things. Over-education or staggering intelligence haven't been any of them.

But it's not as if "magical apparel accessories" have fallen by the wayside. Here are a few bogus products on offer for gullible folks with money to spent.

Some of these charlatans avoid making claims in the text of their websites. But who reads websites? The wild claims are made (with amusing animations) in their slickly produced videos. See for yourself.

Phiten (Click the link to go to Phiten's lawyer-approved technology page.)

Powered by "aqueous titanium." Phiten assures us that titanium doesn't want to be aqueous. Phiten has developed a method for aquifying titanium and infusing it into wristbands and necklaces. Therefore, Phiten products must improve athletic performance. Wait, what?

There's this from eHow. (Now I know that nothing on eHow is to be believed.)
"The magnetized titanium bracelets are also believed to hold a positive charge. In alternative medicine, pain is said to have a negative charge. If you will remember back to middle school science class, you will know that a positive charge and a negative charge cancel out one another. Thus, the titanium bracelet relieves pain by neutralizing it."

The juxtaposing of alternative medicine belief (woo) with middle school science (reality) is typical of homeopathetics. It turns out that neither pain nor titanium are charged. And titanium isn't even magnetic (ferromagnetic). But that's just piling on.

Trion:Z (Click the link to go to their mind-boggling "technology" page.)

Powered by magnets and Mineon fibers (which produce abundant amounts of negative ions). I don't know what kind of material can be counted on to release an endless stream of ions. Except for radioactive sources. Remember, radioactive objects were once marketed as health-enhancers.

Chances are that no ions are given off by Trion:Z products.

Sadly, you can get a Trion:Z necklace bearing the University of Michigan's licensed block M logo. Other money-grubbing "institutions of higher learning" have signed on to this hollow profiteering enterprise, too. But the block M just hurts.

8ight: Keys to Health (Click the link to see 8ight's mind-numbing science page.)

No bogus claims in that video ad!

Powered by holograms, just like Power Balance. There are people with the title of "Dr." who support 8ight. The Southeastern Conference is well represented in 8ight's offerings.

There are more where they came from. And they'll thrive as long as people are prepared to surrender cash for these products. Power Balance is on its way out, but there is no shortage of copy-cats. If anything, they're probably rubbing hands together with glee at the prospect of the "market leader" going down in flames. Let's hope the fire spreads.

Casual pepper spraying cop meme

2011-11-21T22:35:00.000-08:00

Posted without comment.

Power Balance settlement bankruptcy media dump

2011-11-21T22:05:00.000-08:00

Look for stories that document the fact that the bracelets don't do what they claim to do. Actually, don't. You won't find them here. These articles simply document the legal and business aspects of the news.

The Sacramento Bee - City Beat

The Sacramento Press

Business Insider

International Business News

KCRA - NBC - Channel 3: Text - Video: ?

KXTV - ABC - Channel 10: Text - Video: ?

KOVR - CBS - Channel 13: Text and Video - Video: via Yahoo!

KTXL - Fox - Channel 40: Text and Video (Leave it to Fox to give Power Balance a pass!)
Power Balance Naming Rights to be Vacated?

KFBK - AM1530 - Text - Audio (Another generous report from a right-wing media outlet.)

KYMX - Mix96 - Text

Huffington Post

Associated Press

Yahoo's The Post Game

CSU Sacramento's The State Hornet
"I wear one because I believe they help to balance electromagnetic energy," says Dr. Kristofer Chaffin, Sacramento Kings chiropractor, of the "hologram-powered" Power Balance bracelets. Tells you everything you need to know about chiropractic.

What did I miss?

TMZ reports Power Balance to crash and burn

2011-11-21T12:47:00.000-08:00

UPDATE: The Sacramento Bee's got the story! Huzzah!

BREAKING:
POWER BALANCE BRACELETS
Forced to Pay $57 Million,
Expected to Close Shop

The Blog of Phyz is not really about breaking news or linking to the Thirty M ile Zone . But desperate times and desperate measures, you know.

Hope it pans out. And kudos to those who slayed this dragon. Thanks to Sacramento Area Skeptics' Shane Trimmer and What's The Harm's Tim Farley for the heads up.

Hey Phiten! You're next.

Nailed! And Nailed: With Numbers

2011-11-21T08:29:00.000-08:00

Physics: Cinema Classics is a treasure trove of physics video clips depicting demos, animations, and representations of physics phenomena. Our school purchased the LaserDisc in the early 1990s and the DVD set a few years ago. I'd love to give P:CC an enthusiastic thumb's up, but he mechanics of the DVD operation leave much to be desired. Navigating through demos is a nightmare; I'd prefer to have each demo as a QuickTime (or equivalent) file.

In any case, one vignette from the P:CC's Disc 5: Conservation Laws is a 1968 Project Physics gem called called "Nails into Wood." It's the kind of simple but clever demo I can really sink my pedagogical teeth into.

After developing qualitative and quantitative video demo sheets to accompany the clips, I built expanded Keynote representations of the demo. We travel to the Moon and Jupiter, and use mathematical analysis and estimation along the way. I tinkered and fussed with the presos over the past couple of days and decided they were ready for prime time. So I froze them into interactive QuickTimes and posted them to The Book of Phyz on the Energy page.

Nailed! - Student Sheet PDF
Nailed! - Presentation iQT
Nailed: With Numbers - Student Sheet PDF
Nailed: With Numbers - Presentation iQT

Dark Side of the Earth - The Mini-Lesson

2011-11-15T20:32:00.000-08:00

Who are we without our quirks? My quirks are many. Some I treasure; some I loathe.

But anyway...

I was so taken by the grooviness of the ISS time lapse video (one post down), that I had to turn it into curriculum material somehow. That's a quirk I have. When I see something that strikes me as stunningly groovy, I have to turn it into a lesson of some kind.

So I created a Word document, reprinted the credits listed with the film on Vimeo, then decided on an angle to take.

The video is a visual feast. No narration. No subtitles. No sweeping principles; no factoids. Just imagery. And, of course, all the grooviness.

So my angle was "treasure hunt." Identify the timecode when X appears in the film. When can you see the Moon reflected in the water of the Earth? When is the aurora so strong that red and green bands can be seen? And so on for several scene descriptions.

And I give the answer to the biggest, grooviest puzzler I saw in the video: The illuminated border between India and Pakistan. Thanks to commenter Adrienne at Bad Astronomy for sussing that one out! Watch the video looking for it and see if a "whoa!" doesn't involuntarily slip out of your mouth when it passes underneath.

Word and PDF versions of my question sheet can be found in the folder/link below.

EARTH

I'll give it to my students as an optional assignment over Thanksgiving Break. I'd hate to leave them with nothing to do!

Dark Side of the Earth

2011-11-13T23:00:00.000-08:00

Wow! HD. Full screen. Wow!

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

Shooting locations in order of appearance:

1. Aurora Borealis Pass over the United States at Night
2. Aurora Borealis and eastern United States at Night
3. Aurora Australis from Madagascar to southwest of Australia
4. Aurora Australis south of Australia
5. Northwest coast of United States to Central South America at Night
6. Aurora Australis from the Southern to the Northern Pacific Ocean
7. Halfway around the World
8. Night Pass over Central Africa and the Middle East
9. Evening Pass over the Sahara Desert and the Middle East
10. Pass over Canada and Central United States at Night
11. Pass over Southern California to Hudson Bay
12. Islands in the Philippine Sea at Night
13. Pass over Eastern Asia to Philippine Sea and Guam
14. Views of the Mideast at Night
15. Night Pass over Mediterranean Sea
16. Aurora Borealis and the United States at Night
17. Aurora Australis over Indian Ocean
18. Eastern Europe to Southeastern Asia at Night

PhyzSketches: Energy Transformations

2011-11-13T17:42:00.000-08:00

I've updated, upgraded, and posted the latest and greatest versions of my PhyzSketches lessons involving energy transfers and transformations. One lesson focuses on a pole vaulter, the other on shooting a toy dart.

PhyzSketches: Energy Transformations (Student worksheet)
PhyzSketches: Energy Transformations (Instructor's key)
PhyzSketches: Pole Vault Preso (Interactive QuickTime HD)
PhyzSketches: Dart Gun Preso (Interactive QuickTime HD)

As is always the case, I post interactive QuickTime files that anyone can play on any modern computer.

I use Apple's Mac-only Keynote to produce presentations and I use fonts that you don't likely have. So the source file would have limited value.

I've been up=rezzing my QuickTime files to 1650x1080, so they look pretty good in terms of resolution.

Statewide pacing guide—where you should be by now

2011-11-13T16:38:00.000-08:00

There are 60 questions on the California Standards Test (CST) in Physics. There are 180 days in the school year. A simple and informative exercise is to apply the CST content breakdown to the school year.

For example, 12 of the 60 questions relate to the reporting cluster/standard set of "Motion and Forces." That means 12/60 or 20% of the test is on motion and forces. Twenty percent of the 180-day school year is 36 days. But the math is actually simpler than that: multiply the number of CST questions on a standard set by 3 to get the number of days you might spend on it, if you felt a need to be aligned with the CST Blueprint.

Heat and Thermodynamics gets 9 questions, which means it deserves 27 days of class time. A complete table is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Standard sets/reporting clusters and the Physics CST composition.

Applying these values to my 2011-2012 school year calendar produces the result shown in Figure 2. The color legend is shown in Figure 1 (Motion and Forces is pink, etc.). The dark cells with white type show when STAR testing is administered.

Figure 2. CST Blueprint Calendar.

While this schedule might seem aggressive, it's actually not aggressive enough. Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) descends on my school after 29 weeks of instruction. Not 36; 29. If you hope to cover all tested material prior to the administration of the test, you'll need to follow the schedule shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Pure CST prep calendar, ready by test time.

What do I do? I match the state guidelines on Motion and Forces and Energy and Momentum. I shortchange Heat and Thermodynamics. And I give Electricity and Magnetism about 50 days of classroom instruction, where only 30 days are called for. That's 167% of the recommended dosage of E&M. See Figure 4.

Figure 4. Physics as scheduled at Rio Americano.

Why?

Some physics teachers devote a disproportionate amount of time to mechanics. Physics students are known to have stubborn misconceptions in this area, as illustrated by Force Concept Inventory (FCI) results. So some teachers shortchange Electricity & Magnetism in pursuit of weeding out misconceptions in mechanics.

But I would argue that while students may well harbor misconceptions in mechanics, they harbor NO conceptions in electricity and magnetism. Physics CST results bear this out, with Electricity and Magnetism underperforming all other reporting clusters/standard sets.

I cover Wave Phenomena in accordance to the recommended dosage. But we're just starting Waves when STAR tests commence. So I throw Waves under the bus more than any other standard set, in terms of pre-STAR classroom instruction time.

My schedule results in fairly even performance across the standard sets. E&M is still likely to come in last place, but not precipitously so (as was the case years ago). The details of the last 5 years can be seen in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Baird CST reporting clusters, 2007-2011.

As physics teachers, we are unaccustomed to anyone anywhere telling us what to cover, what not to cover, or how fast to move through the course. We all have the best program in the state. And if you're not sure, just ask us!

If you're inclined to disregard California Standards in 9-12 Physics and the CST Blueprint, I apologize for wasting your time with this note. If you're interested in improving your students' CST performance, knowing about these calendars might help with your pacing decisions.

(I hope to update this note with links to CDE resources, but their site isn't responding just now.)

The end of global warming denialism?

2011-11-12T12:37:00.000-08:00

Heck no! There's still "debate" about the fact and theory of evolution.

But here are two long-form video presentations that add perspective to the overwhelming chorus of scientific findings confirming the reality of global warming.

Richard Muller: A Reexamination of the Global Warming
Muller is an independent-minded iconoclast who became a darling of the global warming deniers when he criticized Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and expressed doubt about surface temperature data. Muller is smart, and he's not without an ego (not that there's anything wrong with that). His Koch-brothers'-funded research group was named Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature so that everyone would know that his findings were the BEST results.

Still though, Muller is a scientist, and his fidelity to the methods of science take precedence over his hunches or biases. He assembled a top-notch group and they did thorough work on surface temperature data. Their results confirmed the existing surface temperature data. But Muller's presentation is informative and entertaining, nevertheless.

Barry Bickmore: How to Avoid the Truth About Global Warming
"Barry Bickmore is Associate Professor of Geological Sciences at Brigham Young University. His research specialties are low-temperature geochemistry and geoscience education. In this presentation, he discusses how he moved from being a climate change "skeptic" to being an outspoken advocate of mainstream climate science. He then discusses how it is that people like him can so effectively avoid the truth about climate change." (Hat tip: NCSE.)

The reality is that there will be no end to global warming denialism. Deniers' denial isn't motivated by scientific evidence, so scientific evidence won't change their minds. Nothing will. There are people who remain convinced the Earth is the center of the universe.

Denial stands in the way of responsible public policy, to be sure. But science moves on, with or without the company of deniers.

Mythbusters live on stage

2011-11-11T17:35:00.000-08:00

Mythbusters Tour Video from MAGICSPACE Entertainment on Vimeo.

"The all-new, live stage show “MythBusters Behind the Myths,” starring Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage, co-hosts of the Emmy-nominated Discovery series MythBusters,” promises to be an unexpected evening of on-stage experiments, audience participation, rocking video and behind-the-scenes stories. For the first time ever, fans will join Jamie and Adam on stage and assist in their mind-twisting and not always orthodox approach to science.

"MythBusters Behind the Myths" brings you face to face with the curious world of Jamie and Adam as the duo matches wits on stage with each other and members of the audience."

More info.

"Honda Cog" in the classroom

2011-11-11T11:40:00.000-08:00

I've found that one good place to drop the classic "Honda Cog" ad into the physics curriculum is amid our lessons on energy transfers/transformations.

Those lessons begin with step-by-step analyses of a pole-vault and the firing of a toy dart gun (I'm a big fan of old-style dart guns).

Then we look at the Honda Cog ad.

First we watch it without interruption. Then we watch it with analysis. The video is paused, we discuss, then move on to the next pause-worthy event. There are openings to discuss energy transformations, equilibrium, Newton's third law, balanced torques, and more.

The one segment that students reject is the wheels rolling uphill (0:25-0:30 in the clip). They know that's fake.

So it's a good idea to have a Sargent-Welch Variable Inertia Kit (WL0707D) handy.

The intended use for these discs is to adjust the inner mass balls so that one disc has high rotational inertia and the other has low rotational inertia. The you race them down an incline. If students are unaware of the interior configuration, you've run a nice discrepant event.

But our purpose here is different. We need just one disc. Load the mass balls as shown so that the disc will behave like a Weeble.

Put the disc back together and set it in unstable equilibrium on an inclined plane. A slight disturbance will set it in motion—up the hill!

NCNAAPT UCB Conference recap

2011-11-06T14:01:00.000-08:00

NCNAAPT Section Secretary Bree Barnett Dreyfuss has once again done a stellar job of recording and posting wall-to-wall coverage of our semi-annual conference. She snapped a nice group shot:

Check the links to her coverage of the...
Show & Tell
Keynote Speaker: Richard Muller
Roundtable Resources

And, of course, a gallery of photos.

Mark your calendars for the NCNAAPT Spring Conference: April 20-21, 2012 at Tahoe Community College in Lake Tahoe.

Joulies

2011-11-06T05:22:00.000-08:00

Frank Cascarano of Foothills College showed and told us about Coffee Joulies at the NCNAAPT Fall Conference at UCB.

Nutshell: Stainless steel capsules contain a substance whose melting point is 140°F. Pour some 200°F+ coffee onto some Joulies, and the capsules absorb energy so as to melt the substance. This cools the coffee and liquifies the substance in the Joulies.

Once the coffee cools below 140°F, the substance in the Joulies "freezes," giving heat back to the surrounding coffee.

The point is bend the temperature vs. time graph of the cooling coffee to maximize the time during which the coffee is at optimal drinking.

Joulies are officially groovy!

Coffee Joulies from Coffee Joulies on Vimeo.

UPDATE: Marco Arment, creator of Instapaper, was underwhelmed with the real-world performance of Joulies.

Shown & Told @ NCNAAPT UCB 11.05.11

2011-11-06T04:53:00.000-08:00

Scientist Valentines
Blog of Phyz posts on SciVals can be found here. At the Berkeley Show & Tell, I passed out "quarter-sheet" prints of the Scientist Valentines (printed 4 per letter-size sheet of paper).

Here's the source PDF for those.

Back Masking
Richard Wiseman demonstrated this phenomenon to us at The Amaz!ng Meeting 4 (2006). The context: including skepticism/critical thinking lessons into the physics curriculum is time well spent. One theme worthy of exploration is the fallibility of our cognitive processes, including our ability to create patterns where none exist; pareidolia. This exercise in back masking is audio pareidolia.

Jeff Milner has created and maintained a great page of back masking examples with appropriate user controls. Note: some clips are more compelling than others.

Here's an interactive Quicktime of the presentation, which featured Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, and Led Zeppelin.

Discovery Days at AT&T Park

2011-11-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

Read All About It!

Scarier than Halloween!

2011-10-30T15:21:00.000-07:00

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Smashing pumpkins at 1000 fps

2011-10-30T09:29:00.000-07:00

Submitted for your Halloween approval. Complete with creepy soundtrack.

Hat tip to Huffington Post.

Silent upgrades: The SVGA to WXSGA+ edition

2011-10-30T08:31:00.000-07:00

When I began authoring Keynote presentations in the early 2000's, I went with the slide resolution/size of 800x600 pixels. VGA was 640x480, and who would ever need more resolution than could be shown on a TV screen? I figured I was future-proofing by dialing the resolution up a notch to SVGA, knowing full well that the resulting documents would have larger file sizes.

As fortune would have it, things change. I noticed that the interactive QuickTime files I created from my Keynote presos looked a little chunky when projected digitally. Keynote uprezzes presos to match the projector's capabilities pretty well, but QuickTime isn't as clever. (Neither was I for not knowing that.)

Last year, I began transforming my 800x600 presos to 1680x1050 (WXSGA+). The new aspect is a better match to the MacBook Pro's own display (no black bars). Keynote does its best to scale everything up. But with animations and grouped objects, it doesn't always work out. So tweaking has to be done. Sometimes, the tweaking is nontrivial.

I launched a raft of updates into the momentum unit. And into the UCM/gravity unit before that, and into the Newton's laws and motion units, too. I tag the links with an "HD" when I remember to. If you've been using the old presos, feel free to grab the new versions. The files are bigger, but the added resolution is worth the wait!

Fall NCNAAPT Conference @ UCB this Friday and Saturday!

2011-10-30T06:02:00.000-07:00

Complete details can be found at the NCNAAPT website.

Some quick highlights:

· UC Berkeley Physics demo show Friday night.

· Noted "climate skeptic," Richard Muller, speaks Saturday morning on his course/book, "Physics For Future Presidents."

Check out the rest of the program on this PDF, and schedule your travel plans accordingly.

Quadruple rainbow observed and shot

2011-10-30T05:29:00.000-07:00

I am late to this post, but within the calendar month of the news. I'm slow! But many of these items I post so I can easily find them later.

In any event, here's the fairly undramatic photo:

MSNBC's story at the end of this link explains why the photo doesn't knock your socks off. The BBC's take is here.

One thing to notice, the camera is aimed sunward.

I give a fairly robust lesson in the physics and geometry of rainbows. You should be able to find the materials at these links:
1. "Understanding Rainbows" Springboard (student worksheet)
2. "Understanding Rainbows" Springboard (answers)
3. "Understanding Rainbows" Presentation (interactive QuickTime)

Among the things we learn: the primary rainbow shows up at about 40°-42° around the anti-solar direction, and the secondary is out at 51°-53°. We look away from the sun to see such rainbows.

The geometry of the tertiary rainbow places it 38°-43° from the solar direction. The quaternary rainbow is similarly sunward.

Images of the tertiary and quaternary rainbows are reminiscent of the discovery of the outermost planets. Photographers aim their cameras to where the faint rainbows should be, Without seeing the rainbows with their own eyes, they shoot the images nonetheless. They then post-process the hell out of the images, beefing up contrast and saturation. And voila! Third/fourth order rainbows are revealed.

I'm done with Motion and Forces

2011-10-15T06:16:00.000-07:00

And I'm already behind.

California's Standard Set 1 is "Motion and Forces." It covers basic kinematics, Newton's laws, circular motion, and gravity. And it constitutes 20% of the California Standards Test. A case could be made that Motion and Forces should therefore occupy 20% of one's year-long physics schedule. If the school year is 180 days, Motion and Forces should be the topic for 36 days.

We hit 36 days of instruction this week. And we finished our unit on UCM & Gravity this week. It would appear that I'm right on schedule.

But I'm not. I'm behind.

CSTs are not administered following 180 days of instruction. They are given after about 140 days of instruction. For us, that's mid- to late-April.

So only 28 days should have been devoted to Motion and Forces. I should already be deep into Standard Set 2: Conservation of Energy and Momentum.

As it is, I teach California's 9-12 Physics Standards across a 180-day schedule rather than the artificially-imposed 140-day schedule.

Even at my relatively slow pace, I get the sense that I'm out in front of many physics teachers. We tend to be big fans of Motion and Forces. Many choose to plumb Motion and Forces to depths far beyond what the state of California asks for.

I'm willing to let the state provide guidance on which topics to teach. I am employed by the state to teach physics, so I teach the physics the state asks me to teach.

But I can't bring myself to squeeze all that content into 140 days of a 180-day school year. The STAR testing schedule forces testing to be done in April for the convenience of the Department of Education and their testing contractor. The timetable is artificial and pedagogically meaningless, so I don't adhere to it.

Web Video for the Classroom page updated

2011-10-02T19:45:00.001-07:00

One of the many consequences of my undiagnosed OCD is a need to keep a web page holding links to the many videos I like to use in class at just the right moment. As more videos come online, I update the page.

I'm not sure I provided a space for all the treasures I found since last October, but it seems I have a distinct need to update the page following PTSOS1 each year. Since PTSOS1 was yesterday, today I offer the updated web video page!

The oldies are all there for your convenience. "New ones" found since last year have been added and tagged appropriately, I hope. Each entry has a thumbnail embedded video. The subsequent title is linked to the source page. (Yes, I'm hot-sourcing, so links may go dead. I recommend you download copies onto your own storage device.) There is also a link to the corresponding Blog of Phyz entry and/or curriculum materials where available.

If you find yourself with time to kill, check these out.

Web Video for the Classroom

There's also more video fun at my page for

Skepticism in the Classroom.

1. Enjoy and
2. Send me links of groovy videos I should have included!
3. Feel free to remind me what videos I posted to the blog but haven't archived on this page.

Faster-than-light neutrinos

2011-09-24T16:40:00.000-07:00

The big science news of the week has been the report of neutrinos traveling faster than light.

The mainstream media has framed the story as the downfall of "Einstein's most trusted theories," a violation of a "cardinal rule of physics" and the like. I suspect some outlets have trained cameras on the 13th floor of science buildings, waiting to capture images of scientists throwing themselves to their deaths over the news.

Physicist had it wrong all this time. How could they lie to us like that? Is ∑F=ma true, or just another lie coming from Big Physics?

It's mostly nonsense, of course. But apparently it's the only way you can run a story about physics research in the mainstream media.

One might reasonably wonder who's behind this physics-shattering research. Is it those pesky chemists with their "central science" braggadocio? Or wore yet: reality-denying economists? Of course not. It's physicists. And they're doing science. And if the science they do leads to a model better than the one we use now, then... well, that's how science works. Just as it did when evolutionists destroyed Piltdown Man. (Creationists could never have destroyed Piltdown Man because they are unfamiliar with the methods of science.)

There are no cardinal rules in science. No immutable laws etched into the stone permanence. There is a process for tentative acceptance or rejection: the process of science. (Not the "scientific method" cleanly described the first chapter of pre-college science textbooks, mind you. That's an unrealistic and simplified distillation not actually practiced by scientists.)

May people think there are laws in science. Permanent, perfect, and absolute truths that explain a whole set of observations. I was recently scolded for this notion by a commenter on a right-wing blog who educated me on the fact that Newtonian Gravity had achieved "law" status, by someone who was clearly not familiar with General Relativity.

We do a disservice to the essence of science when we invoke the term "law." No principle in science is safe from attack, dismemberment, and replacement. And we like it that way. We work to produce the best model we can. But nothing is considered permanent.

If Special Relativity must be discarded into the dustbin of science, it can keep company with the luminiferous aether, phlogiston, and so on. And science will rejoice and be happy in it.

Then again. and I hate to even mention this while the big media ballyhoo still lingers in the air, it might be there was an error somewhere in the faster-than-light neutrino study. If that turns out to be the case, don't look for article in the mainstream media detailing where the research went wrong. There's no sexy there. No collapsing pillars of science imagery to evoke. And how many column-inches is anyone going to devote to "oops" or "never mind"?

As ever, xkcd sums it up nicely (click to embiggen):

Hat tip to Bernard Cleyet.

You know school is in full swing when...

2011-09-20T22:27:00.000-07:00

To some, it may be the first day of school. For others, it's Back to School Night. What annual milestone is your indication that summer is over and the school year is on "for reals"?

First progress grade reports are due? (When I started teaching, this was at the end of October. They were referred to as "Quarter Grades." This year, it's September 27. You could call them "Eighthly Grades," or "Monthly Grades," or "How did we go from 4 grading interims to 8 grading interims and how much smarter are students as a result?")

The end of the first 20 days of class leveling? (And a slowing of the revolving door.) This is the time of year when teachers announce their newest "adds" in the faculty room like old fighters showing off scars. The real problem lies in the expectation that, four weeks into the year, a teacher has some magical technique that will bring a new student from zero to completely-caught-up in short order and without pain. And without any negative consequence on that first round of eighthly grades.

First parent conference? Haven't had one (yet), but we all know that can't last.

First JB-Weld repair job? This year mine was on a Pasco Visual Accelerometer. I'm not sure how the interior thumbscrew anchor post got fractured, but it did.

In related news, I noticed the milk I bought today will not expire until after paycheck breakfast. Huzzah!

Der tischdeckentrick - episches ausfallen

2011-09-15T19:38:00.000-07:00

Michel and Sven! Will they never learn?

After my classes howled with laughter at this "epic fail," we discussed the clues to the disingenuous nature of the clip. And a good time was had by all.

We'll all remember Michel with great fondness. A student told me the two are young actors in a troupe of some sort; this was a well-choreographed skit. You'll find lesser Michel and Sven tablecloth trick "fails" on YouTube as well. Mostly they dump things onto the floor by pulling the tablecloth too slowly.

Hat tip to Richard Wiseman.

Physics 1: Introduction to Motion (newly revised)

2011-09-12T06:58:00.000-07:00

I've more or less finalized my new first unit in Physics 1. It blends the old first unit ("Preliminaries") with the first half of the old second unit ("Motion & Inertia").

It spans the beginning of the year to all the motion as we need to cover. That is, it goes from the introduction all the way to the end of motion: Introduction to Motion.

Unit 1.01 Introduction to Motion Schedule

The Book of Phyz - Unit 1.01 Introduction to Motion

Some Unit 1 lessons "bleed" over into Unit 2 (Newton's Laws). They serve as homework when there is otherwise no homework for students to do, such as a night following a lab day.

No pretense of wisdom

2011-09-11T10:52:00.000-07:00

I woke up on Tuesday, September 11, 2001 as I did any other work day: to NPR's Morning Edition. The program includes news updates at regular intervals among long-form stories and features. News of a plane striking the World Trade Center entered the update loop. Not fully awake and alert, I envisioned a low-altitude Cessna somehow lost in morning clouds.

I had no idea.

The other tower was hit. These were passenger jets. And the skies over New York were clear. I eventually turned on my television. (My television is rarely on and is never on in the morning.) Horror from Washington DC was added to horror from NYC. A terrorist attack was underway, and there was no knowing what—if anything—was next.

But school was to start at its regular time, so that's where I needed to be. My colleague, Lucy Jeffries, had a small (5"-screen small) TV in her classroom. I asked her for an update before the start of first period. My recollection is that by then, a plane had also gone down in the farmlands of Pennsylvania. And one tower had fallen. I had known that from the radio coverage, but it was good to make contact with a colleague.

A national tragedy was in the midst of unfolding. It was bad, but little was known. And the first period tardy bell rang on schedule.

What to do? There was no reason to think that there would be any modifications to the school day schedule (and there were none). There were no directives from the school's administration, and none could reasonably have been expected. There you are, classroom physics teacher: a terrorist attack under way on the other side of the country, 30 students in class, and the bell has rung.

I could have sat on a table and rapped with the students, letting them express their feelings and theories about the attack while offering sagely comfort that everything was going to be alright. Would they then repeat this exercise in periods 2 through 6? Would that be a wise way to spend the day? I didn't think so.

I could have tuned into CNN for live coverage and kept the TV going all day, watching the horror unfold on live TV. Towers collapsing, fires burning, bodies falling, and the most horrific images being replayed over and over. My aversion to TV would not have allowed me to do that. As it was, my TV monitor had neither a functional cable connection nor an operational antenna. So live viewing was not an option for me. It was an option in some classrooms, and there were teachers who elected this option.

What did I do? I proceeded with the day's scheduled lesson on motion. Toned down and gentle. But physics. That's what we did.

My head was not in the sand. I did acknowledge the news of the day. I told the students that they would never forget the date or the events of the day. A student asked, "Why 9/11?" I told him that—most likely—that was the day the terrorists were ready to implement their attack. Nothing poetic or symbolic. Just logistical.

By the end of the day, a memo was cobbled together by the school's administration and copied for distribution to all 6th period students. They were to take the memo home to their parents. The memo assured parents that, among other things, none of the classrooms were watching live coverage of the attacks or the aftermath. By then it was clear that watching victims jump to their deaths was inappropriate viewing material for students.

The memo was true for my classroom. I have reason to suspect it was not true of all the classrooms at the school. Prior to that reassuring memo, there had been no administrative directive against watching live coverage. To the best of my knowledge, administrators had not been out in any classrooms that day. So they had no direct knowledge of what was going on in classrooms. And so I saw the memo as an unintentional misrepresentation intended to provide comfort rather than an intentional breech of trust.

I thought about a bright-eyed, optimistic, spirited, joyful student named Gillian who had just begun classes at NYU. She was a key member of PhyzGang 2000, a group of friends who seemed to be having a party that coincided with my 6th period physics class of 1999-2000 and AP Physics 2000-2001. The attacks damaged us all, and real human tragedies occurred on 9/11. But I hated to think of her being in the shadows of the towers as they fell, for what that might do to her.

It was an awful day, and its black cloud was slow to dissipate. As a school, our attempts to mourn the events were heartfelt but at times awkward. I believe it was at the one week anniversary that students were assembled during class time for a remembrance: When a student leader was given the microphone he led the public school student body in prayer. Anyone offended by the notion of public school students being led in prayer during school time was expected to bite his or her tongue out of respect.

It wasn't clear whether or not student-led prayer was to become a regular feature of the mandatory memorials, so prior to the next one (the one month anniversary?) I prepared a simple sign that assured anyone who saw it that "It's OK not to pray." Producing and posting such a thing put a bull's eye on me as being a jerk, but I am such a big fan of church-state separation.

I had occasion to take a commercial flight a few weeks after 9/11. Airport parking had been reconfigured, enhanced security checks, and the uniformed military personnel armed with M16s served as a reminder that the world was now a different place.

Advice for parents of students

2011-09-10T15:33:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned before that I've got it pretty good where I teach. Parents are involved in their children's educations and in the school. Highly involved parents are a great thing 99% of the time.

But there is that other 1%. And with student loads of 165, a teacher is likely to encounter a bad experience or two.

Teacher extraordinaire, Ron Clark, penned a note that puts a voice to frustrations teachers have with parents, The behaviors he lists are trending upward.

The article is short, but here are a few highlights.

"If we give you advice, don't fight it. Take it, and digest it in the same way you would consider advice from a doctor or lawyer. I have become used to some parents who just don't want to hear anything negative about their child, but sometimes if you're willing to take early warning advice to heart, it can help you head off an issue that could become much greater in the future."

"If you don't want your child to end up 25 and jobless, sitting on your couch eating potato chips, then stop making excuses for why they aren't succeeding. Instead, focus on finding solutions."

"If we give a child a 79 on a project, then that is what the child deserves. Don't set up a time to meet with me to negotiate extra credit for an 80. It's a 79, regardless of whether you think it should be a B+."

"I had a child cheat on a test, and his parents threatened to call a lawyer because I was labeling him a criminal. I know that sounds crazy, but principals all across the country are telling me that more and more lawyers are accompanying parents for school meetings dealing with their children."

I know there are some awful teachers out there. Education is not valued highly enough to keep them out of the profession. But while legislation is passed to hold teachers accountable for this, that, and the other, none is so much as proposed to hold parents accountable for much of anything.

When a school works, it does so because the community works together. Parents parent, teachers teach, administrators administrate. And students learn.

I am done with motion

2011-09-09T14:50:00.000-07:00

If you want to call me crazy, the line forms to the rear.

But we had our first unit test today in Rio's Physics 1 course, so as of 2:50pm on Friday, September 9, we are done with motion. On Monday, we move on to Newton's laws and physics!

Kinematics can be many kinds of fun. But for my taste, it's not worth one month while the curriculum clock is ticking. It's applied math, for heaven's sake! And no, it's not the foundation upon which the entirety of introductory physics rests.

Is acceleration a difficult concept for first-year physics students to learn? Absolutely. I rank it as the most difficult concept students will confront in intro physics. So you can spend a month teaching it while mastery continues to elude many students.

But why would you?

Which part of the sky will collapse behind your students not mastering the subtle intricacies of the second derivative of the position function? None of it!

Universal mastery of acceleration is not required before you can pull out of the harbor of kinematics and set sail in the ocean of physics. So don't sacrifice one tenth of your school year chasing such mastery while engaging topics in actual physics get pushed off the table at the other end of the year.

You've got 180 days and a full palette of robust physics topics to get to. Pre-newtonian applied math does not merit an expenditure of 18 of those days. Tempus fugit! Is mastery of kinematics so important that any talk of rainbows, mirages, or the blue sky should be banished from the intro course? Or is it electricity and magnetism that should be left behind? Shall we presume that All Things Heat & Thermo are covered in chemistry, so it's OK to skip any/all such material in physics?

Something must be thrown under the bus if kinematics mastery is to be achieved. What should it be?

Whatever it is, I've got a nickel that says it's a more "legitimate" physics topic than acceleration. So my advice is to ditch the ticker-tape and (I'll say it) robust video motion analysis of projectile trajectories. That stuff might be all manner of groovy, but it's overkill in the introductory course. Few high school students need to master kinematics to secure their future career. Those who do will have more chances in college to lock such things in. In the meantime, the clock is ticking on your 180 days.

Don't keep physics waiting!

Are you ready for some PHYSICS?

2011-09-05T14:06:00.000-07:00

The season-opening PTSOS Physics Teacher Workshop will be held Saturday, September 17, at Los Gatos High School. That's Dan Burns' high school. (Paul Robinson has retired, so PTSOS workshops will no longer be held at San Mateo High School.)

Sacramento's "home-opener" will be Saturday, October 1, at Rio Americano High School. Dean Baird and Steve Keith are your hosts for the workshop.

The theme for Workshop 1 is mechanics and the beginning of the school year. Motion, forces, energy, momentum, gravity, and rotation, as well as ideas on how to start the year right and communicate to parents at Back-to-School Night. The themes are set, but the workshop paths wander in different directions every year. We specialize in tangents!

If you haven't yet registered, get on over to ptsos.org for more info, and send a note to Stephanie Finander to sign up. Registration is free, but we order serious goodies for participants.

In the meantime, here are some photos from workshops held last year.

PTSOS San Mateo 2010-11
PTSOS Sacramento 2010-11

Goodwin Liu's big day

2011-09-02T01:45:00.000-07:00

I don't presume to know if Thursday ranked as high as fourth in the greatest days of Goodwin Liu's life. But is was a big day. And fourth is as high as it could reasonably be expected to rank, since he is married with two children.

Goodwin Liu was sworn in as a Justice of the California Supreme Court by Governor Brown at a private ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda on Thursday. My Rio Americano colleague, English teacher June Gatewood, and I attended as invited guests of our former student. Our pride in Goodwin could be eclipsed only by that of his parents, Yang-Ching and Wen-Pen. I love this photo from the confirmation hearing on Wednesday.

Thursday's swearing-in ceremony marked the first time I had ever been inside the Capitol. Mrs. Gatewood and I were honored to have been invited by Professor Liu. If I told you I wasn't completely giddy, I'd be telling you a lie.

We were seated directly behind other Supreme Court Justices and in among important dignitaries such as Attorney General Kamala Harris. If I were more "in the know," I'm sure I would have recognized the other high-power officials that surrounded us.

The ceremony was brief: introductory comments from Governor Jerry Brown, an enthusiastic welcoming statement from Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, an address from Professor Liu, and the swearing in. Goodwin's wife, Ann O'Leary—an accomplished professional in her own right—smoothly kept the couple's young daughter, Violet, and toddler, Emmett, suitably entertained during the ceremony. I sat rapt by the whole affair, beaming with pride, joy, and delight. Little Emmett, however, expressed concern that the ceremony ran a bit long.

Two Rio Mirada student journalists obtained press credentials and documented the ceremony for the school newspaper.

A reception was held in the governor's office following the ceremony. Mrs. Gatewood and I enjoyed some snacks. She eventually left, but I stayed. I got a chance to greet the Governor and thank him for making an excellent selection.

After the crowd thinned somewhat, I sat with Goodwin's parents and thanked them for raising two outstanding boys. Goodwin's brother, Kingsway, is a respected surgeon at Kaiser Permanente's Fremont Medical Center. He graduated from Rio just before I arrived. Mrs. Liu deflected the praise and insisted her boys did it all, themselves. She is sweet and charming, but I wasn't buying her argument. Mr. Liu was as aglow with pride as I've ever seen any father. If the smile ever left his face, I didn't see it.

The throng of well-wishers eventually slowed, and Mrs. Liu summoned Goodwin's attention. Decorum aside, I shook the Justice's hand and pulled him into Hug Harbor! We caught up for a bit; and it struck me how little he's changed. He's almost completely the Goodwin Liu I remember from 25 years ago! Mrs. Liu kindly snapped a photo so I could have my very own groupie shot!

I know, I know; I should have set the fill-in flash! If you knew how delirious with joy I was, you'd forgive my inattention to photographic details. I'll remain buzzed with the joy of this event for some time. I am proud of Goodwin and delighted for the great state of California. I hope life for the Lius quiets down a bit now and they get some rest and relaxation. I know I'll sleep better knowing that Goodwin Liu will be weighing in on the state's most important legal matters.

Rearranging the deck chairs

2011-08-29T00:25:00.000-07:00

The end of the school year seems to be getting increasingly crunched. I don't know if I'm moving too slowly or testing schedules are mucking up the works or what.

I remember a story on NPR where a noted skyscraper architect said that when trying to design a taller building, you must think not in terms of adding another level to the top, but adding another level to the bottom.

And so I decided that I needed to get to something physics-y sooner than I was. I had a "prelims" unit up first in Physics 1 to accommodate the revolving door of added and dropped students whose count rate is highest the first week and drops with a reasonable half-life until the first 20 days is up. The thought was to forestall the physics until student schedules settled down.

No more. While we still don't get to our first lab until the second week, I compressed the prelims stuff and combined it with my non-month-long unit on motion. That's right: I don't spend a month on motion. More like a week. Motion analysis is applied math. Good fun, and math we do in physics class. But not really physics. The kicker? The entire sky remains aloft; none of it falls!

Anyway, the result is some upheaval in my first and second units of Physics 1 (units 1.01 and 1.02). There will be some pain at phyz.org while the deck chairs get rearranged and appropriately modified. Let me know which links are broken and I will try to fix them. Such a rearrangement is not a trivial matter when there are so many moving parts.

Thank you for your patience!

Extra Credit Opportunities for Rio Physics Students!

2011-08-18T15:19:00.000-07:00

Congratulations for checking this note! Here are the opportunities:

1. Biggie:
When: Friday 8/19/11 - 2:00pm-4:00pm
Where: Room B-8 (Baird/Physics)
What: Readying the classroom for class on Monday
Extra Credit Rate 36 pts/hr (Triple the normal rate). Definitely worth skipping the afternoon soaps for.
To sign up for this opportunity, simply show up and be ready to work!

2. Smalls
When: Monday during the Link-Crew Training Block
Where: Football Field Air-Rocket Launching
What: Helping to supervise the launching of air-powered rockets
Extra Credit Rate: 12 pts/hr. Earning extra credit during school time? Sweet!
To sign up for this opportunity, send a note with your info to dean@phyz.org.

Forward the link. Tweet it up! Post it to your FB Wall.

STAR 2011 scores are up!

2011-08-15T14:56:00.000-07:00

Results of the Spring 2011 STAR administration were posted today. To see yours, start at the "STAR" page. And navigate to the 2011 Test Results page.

Once there, select your county, district, and school. Leave the test, group, and subgroup alone. Click the on-screen "View Report" button.

Physics results are at or near the bottom of the resulting report.

For additional amusement, start at the beginning and don't select a county. That will show you statewide results. Or pick a county but no district to see how things stand in your county.

You'll be able to access more meaningful results via Data Director, but I forget the steps. I recall only that there are too many, and few are intuitive.

To simplify matters, I usually refer to my score as "P% of N," where P is the sum of the school's advanced and proficient performance while N is the number of test-takers.

The school's physics enrollment was down last year, but those in the class performed at an admirable level.

2011: 70% of 84
2010: 66% of 135
2009: 61% of 107
2008: 57% of 124
2007: 51% of 167

Our "pass rate" is up while our physics enrollment is uneven and generally decreasing. I understand that our incoming Freshman class is unusually large, so there is hope for the future.

But what of the state? Physics continues to lead among the tested sciences.

76,144 students took the 2011 Physics CST
22% performed at the Advanced level
30% were Proficient
31% were Basic
9% were Below Basic
7% were Far Below Basic

The percent of Advanced and Proficient scores stands at 52%, up from last year's pack-leading 49%. The number of physics students earning Advanced or Proficient status has increased by 23% since 2003. No other subject-area test has seen anything close that kind of performance gain. Here's an obligatory Excel graph to show the story of the stats.

Camoulopods

2011-08-14T09:21:00.000-07:00

This nifty vid keeps popping up in my Facebook feed, and I'm deep in lab book manuscript prep mode, so here you go. If you are either of the two people who haven't seen it, take a look. It's one of Lichtman's best, and it is worthy its "groovy" tag. NPR's Science Friday does it again!

The fact that I've got a big nerdcrush on Flora Lichtman is entirely beside the point. Still though, she is pretty dreamy!

Goodwin Liu nominated to California Supreme Court

2011-08-05T15:39:00.000-07:00

Between TAM9 and AAPTSM11, I've been remiss in reporting this great news.

Rio Americano High School graduate, Goodwin Liu, will serve on the California Supreme Court. He was named by Governor Jerry Brown to replace retiring Associate Justice Carlos Moreno.

In 2010, Liu was appointed to the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals. But Republicans (who loudly decried the use of filibusters against judicial appointments) used a filibuster to prevent a vote on Liu's nomination.

The Federal Court's loss is the California Supreme Court's gain. If any Rio grad has attained a more prestigious position, I am unaware of it. I am proud of Goodwin beyond words.

You can see my previous posts regarding Goodwin's Judicial Journey here.

Jennifer Ouellette on "low-temperature physics"

2011-07-24T15:10:00.000-07:00

We prefer to imagine that gender issues in the physics community are a thing of the past.

They are not.

TAM9 From Outer Space... and into my camera

2011-07-24T15:02:00.000-07:00

The Amaz!ng Meeting 2011: TAM9 From Outer Space. It was too big and there's too much to say for me to even attempt a summary post. I'm still tingly from all the skeptical goodness of the conference and the conferees.

The speakers are always wonderful and the attendees? You want to meet more of them than the space-time continuum allows.

One highlight was running into a former student who said he was there because of the skepticism lessons I sprinkled throughout the school year. Wow! As if I wasn't buzzed enough from the "teacher crack" that the story of Jessica Scheimer provided. It may be quite a while before I come down.

One thing I like to imagine I can do better than most at TAM is getting photos of the presenters in action. The photographic conditions are less than ideal, and I don't use flash. Anyway, I'll use this post to link to my Flickr TAM9 photo albums as I finish the post-processing on them. I tried using my "big-boy" gear for the first time at TAM this year: Canon 60D, 24-105mm lens, 100-400mm lens, ballhead and tripod. My trusty 32 GB SD card had enough capacity for each day's shoot. The camera battery didn't fail, but I always switched to the backup in the afternoon at a convenient moment to avoid an inopportune outage.

Active links are completed albums. Inactive links are "in progress."

TAM9 Thursday, July 14 Workshops I Attended

TAM9 Friday, July 15 Morning Speakers and Panels

TAM9 Friday, July 15 Afternoon Speakers and Panels

TAM9 Saturday, July 16 Morning Speakers and Panels

TAM9 Saturday, July 16 Afternoon Speakers and Panels

TAM9 Sunday, July 17 Presenters

PTSOSers show their mettle on Iron Science Teacher

2011-07-11T08:17:00.000-07:00

NorCal physics teachers Bree Barnett and Ty Fredriks recently performed on the Exploratorium's Iron Science Teacher. What is Iron Science Teacher?

"Cheer on the competitors in this zany science cook-off, where teachers compete before a live audience at the Exploratorium for the sought-after title, "Iron Science Teacher." Parodying the cult Japanese TV program, "Iron Chef," the Exploratorium's Iron Science Teacher competition showcases science teachers as they devise classrom activities using a particular ingredient—an everyday item such as a plastic bag, a milk carton, or a nail."

Bree's "secret ingredient" was eggs. Take a look at Bree's Eggsalent Adventure.

Ty's "secret ingredient" was magnets. Take a look at "Tesla Ty" in action (at a distance).

Our colleagues did a great job; they demonstrated grace under pressure in addition to some great science. Well done, Bree and Ty!

Apple investigating "physics metaphors" for iOS interfacing

2011-07-09T17:31:00.000-07:00

As multitouch gesturing matures on smartphones and tablets (well, iPhones and iPads anyway), computer manufacturers are running out of simple options. Click, drag, tap, double-tap, two-finger drag, expand, pinch, rotate... the low-hanging fruit is fairly well picked.

Apple is filing patents on gestures like flicking and pouring--gestures based on physics metaphors--as multitouch devices move forward.

Full details and diagrams at AppleInsider.

Magnet boy attracts skepticism

2011-07-09T17:16:00.000-07:00

A new "magnet boy" is entertaining Brazilians. Previous "magnet boys" seem to have been concentrated in Serbia and Croatia. The story line rarely varies from a simple formula. The boy is preteen, obese, and things appear to stick to him. Staged video of things sticking to him is provided. Once the demonstrations are made, stories are added telling of radio reception issues and/or healing powers.

I'll include some video links here, but simply Google "magnet boy" for the latest or most popular variants. And don't worry, the narrative won't vary from the formula described above.

Show the videos in class, then move in with some inquiry.

1. The claim is that the boy is magnetic. What evidence was provided to support the claim.
2. In what ways--if any--was the evidence not compelling?
3. Is there an alternate explanation of this phenomenon?
4. How would you test the claim if the "magnet boy" were here in the classroom?

The TV-news items are always wholly credulous. Skepticism and critical thinking don't sell ad slots or keep viewers glued to screens.

Magnets rightly hold a level of fascination among everyone. They act at a distance. You can feel an invisible repulsion force when playing with magnets that you likely don't understand. Magic! Part of the common misunderstanding of magnets is that anything metal is magnetic. People are surprised to find out you can't pick up pennies (or any other US coins) with a magnet.

Many "magnet boy" stories do themselves in (from a purely scientific perspective) when they show copper, nickel, or other nonmagnetic alloy coins sticking to the boy. When plastics and ceramics stick to him, we are invited to question our understanding of what magnetism really is.

And though actual magnetism is little diminished through a thin layer of clothing, "magnet boy" magnetism requires direct contact with skin. A non-vertical surface of skin helps, too.

One might ponder the exploitative nature of such spectacles, or wonder about the health/diet of the obese boys. And given the nature of the demonstrations, it's easy to see why an outbreak of "magnet girl" media darlings is unlikely.

Media fluff like this can and should be mined for as deeply as possible for lessons in skepticism throughout the school year. When students see such fluff in the future, we'll have reason to hope they'll laugh out loud at the offending TV screen.

Hat tip to SkepChick, Rebecca Watson, for the lead.

Hall of fame and Phyz photo albums

2011-07-07T11:15:00.000-07:00

Dean Baird's Phyz Home Page was designed in the late 1990's when I was taking my first baby steps into Hyper Text Markup Language. It was not intuitively obvious that a domain's home page needed to have a filename of "index.html."

The home page has not been changed much since those early days. Simple. Low bandwidth. Intended as a launch point to content. The day may come when a redesign is warranted. But that day is not today!

I made a couple changes to the site today. The Hall of Fame has been updated to reflect this year's new inductees. The Phyz Photo Album link now directs to the appropriate collection of my Flickr photo empire. I also added a link to Pearson's Conceptual Physics Lab Manual (Hewitt/Baird). And I added links to Arbor Scientific's Laser Beam Viewing Tank and Conceptual Physics Alive! Video Question Sets. Because if I can't flog my own stuff on my own home page, what's the point?

Jessica Scheimer is a rock star

2011-07-06T04:43:00.000-07:00

She's better than a rock star: she's a new physics teacher and she's made of win. I was willing to keep quiet about her because you'd think I was breathlessly gushing about another one of my former students as I sometimes do. But the cat is out the bag and the beans are spilled. My license to gush? Granted!

The good news about Rio Americano physics prodigy-turned-high-school-teacher, Jessica Scheimer, hit the Davis Enterprise last week when I was out negotiating the tenuous lava cliffs of Ingólfshöfði in hopes of getting a shot of the elusive puffin. But I digress.

Jessica Scheimer is a Knowles Foundation Fellow. Most people don't know how big a deal that is. It's huge. But Jessica is all manner of worthy. She burned up my Physics 1 course. She was the first to register for AP Physics 2 when course selections opened for the next year. And she set the river of AP Physics 2 completely ablaze. She outshone her peers in a class that included some very bright students.

Jessica ate up everything the two-year sequence had to offer. Nothing slowed her down. And she wasn't just flexing academic muscle: she was clearly into it. She was up to the task no matter how tough the task was. She did much better in my class than I would have done when I was her age. (Any such match would have been stopped by officials enforcing a mercy rule.) And she continued to shine at UC Davis, where they laid out a red carpet to keep her for post-graduate teacher training.

The good people at Knowles, who must turn away some 90% of fellowship applicants, figured out Jessica's talent, industry, and the whole of her intangibles.

The fellowship they granted is valued at $150,000 in financial assistance, stipends, professional development, mentoring, leadership, and support. It's like a MacArthur genius grant for new teachers. And it was made for people like Jessica. I'm beside myself with joy that Jessica found Knowles and Knowles found Jessica. They've posted their own version of a Jessica Scheimer miniBio page.

Congratulations to neighborhood "rival," Jesuit, for snapping Jessica up before the bidding wars that should have broken out over who would get the privilege of signing her. I'm not going to lie: I'm terribly jealous.

I could sing the praises of Jessica Scheimer for days without end, but read Jeff Hudson's article. It's written by a professional. And it did reduce me to tears for a moment. If she had been your student, you'd get blubbery, too.

I get more than anyone's fair share of amazingly brilliant students. Goodwin Liu, Linsey Marr, Jason Kamras, Susan Crown, and many, many more. Most (if not all) are ten times smarter than I'll ever be. I'm very proud of all of them, and delighted when someone else recognizes them for their awesomeness.

But when of the best-ever chooses to teach physics, I can barely keep my limbs from bursting off in an overload of happiness. I know Jessica will harbor some misgivings about me raving about her like this. But as a public figure, she's just going to have to deal with it. As a consolation, I offer Jessica a giggle in the form of this post's timestamp.

Thanks to Rio legend, Al Manfredi, for passing the Enterprise article to me.

I'm a PAEMST state finalist!

2011-07-05T10:44:00.000-07:00

I was in Iceland when this news broke, so once again I'm a little behind here at "The Blog of Phyz." In any case, I am one of three science teacher finalists nominated by the state of California for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (PAEMST).

The news was admittedly known to me before the press release was posted and carried. I got a surprise phone call from Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Torlakson, June 2nd. It was funny because I was picking up Paul and Lillian Hewitt from the train station when the call came in. They were in town for the visit described below. So I was trying to find a quiet space with cell reception at the Amtrak station. A nice mix of surrealism and comedy.

The Superintendent was generous with praise for my work and inquisitive regarding science, math, engineering, and technology (STEM) education. His congratulations were warm and his interest was genuine.

I didn't know I would be speaking with Mr. Torlakson when the call came through--or that he was bearing news that I had been made a finalist. I was already pretty geeked to be picking up the Hewitts for their visit to my fair city. So I was happy to have kept all bodily functions in check.

The application process is rigorous and I have little doubt that the review process was anything but thorough. I am grateful to my mentor and physics teacher extraordinaire, Steve Keith, for persistently nominating me. And to my recommenders: Rio's Vanessa Adolphson, former student and soon-to-be Jesuit HS physics teacher, Jessica Scheimer, and guiding light, Paul Hewitt. And to my students, especially my 6th period class for being active participants (as they always were) even while being videotaped during the "Blue Sky" lesson. And to Amir Khazaieli for shooting the one-take and burning it to DVD.

I haven't said much about the PAEMST application or selection as a finalist up to this point. My students knew about it and were excited about it when I completed the application at the beginning of May. But some presumed I would win and wanted to know when I would be notified. The selection process and the existence of so many other highly-qualified candidates weren't part of their reality. I did my best to play things down to them.

The finalist selection was the California Department of Education's story to tell. I didn't want to jump the gun or spill too many beans prior to their press release. And I was in Iceland when the release came out.

State nominations go to the National Science Foundation and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. They will decide which of the states' finalists will be selected for this year's PAEMST class. I would not have applied for this recognition if I didn't hope to represent California among this year's winners. But I also know that California has no shortage of excellent science teachers. And I have already won so much in that I have a job I wake up wanting to do, and I get to share my enthusiasm with great students and great teachers.

In Iceland!

2011-06-24T23:37:00.000-07:00

Photostream here.

Observations of a first-time AP exam reader

2011-06-18T17:35:00.000-07:00

...as shared on the AP Physics EDG by James von Steen, physics teacher at Southwest Guilford High School in High Point, North Carolina. His note is reprinted here with the author's permission.

It's important to note that the author's intent is not to deride test-takers for common mistakes, but rather to describe the observations he made as a first-time AP Physics exam reader (grader).

After a 5 year wait, I final received the opportunity to become an AP reader. My primary goal was to learn as much as I possibly can to become a better teacher. Here are things I noted.

1. A lot of students thought that work is always positive (never negative).

2. A lot of students thought W = F x t , W = F / d , W = F x v and F = mat.

3. If a student put down the correct numerical answer, but showed no work, they could get 0 pts and 1 pt at most.

4. A student could have math errors and still get maximum points.

5. On an FBD, if the directions say “on the dot below” draw the force vectors …., If the student draws force vectors that don’t touch the dot (even though they are correctly labeled and pointed in the correct direction), they could lose credit (I learned this one at the lunch table).

6. Readers don’t like grading the lab question.

7. I’m going to tell my students when “Justification” is requested, use formulas and calculations to justify your answer as oppose to words. The more words they write the more likely the reader is going to over look a correct answer. Example: W = F x d = -15 J (easy to spot and give credit) as oppose to ”Work equals forces times distance which will be a negative numbers” (hard to spot especially embedded in a lot of text). I looked back now and wonder if I missed giving some desiring students credit.

8. Don’t use the word “it”. I don’t know what “it” is. I saw students write “it is decreasing”. I don’t know if “it” meant acceleration, velocity or my bank account after the children are born.

9. A lot of students thought work was a vector.

10. Watch out for the decimal point in the given. The problem was given 0.40 kg and a lot of students wrote F = ma = (4)(2) = 8 N and missed an easy point.

11. “Check” the box(es). Some students didn’t do any work but checked the correct spaces and got credit and (sadly) one student got no credit because he/she check no boxes even though they stated the correct box to be checked and had the correct justification (we have to go by the rubric).

12. I thought that the students didn’t have to memorize any numbers, but the only way to answer the very last problem of the exam 6. d) ii) is they had to memorize the wavelengths of visible light. I was told it is in the “acorn” book, but I couldn’t find it. Which makes me think that there are other numbers out there that my students are require to memorize.

13. It looks like the AP Physics redesign will be a step backwards. I didn’t hear anybody liking it public or privately. I’m luckier than most. I’m able to get the whole curriculum in but my students will take 2 exams for 6 hours instead of 1 exam for 3 hours (and yes they paid for both). I can see the redesign killing some AP physics programs and overall less students taking the exam.

14. The food was “ok” (not as great as I heard it was). I got tired of recycled green beans, lettuce and potatoes every day.

15. I met a lot of smart people that I learned from. I hope they ask me back next year.

Responses to von Steen's post indicated some variation of interpretation among readers. But the variations were relatively subtle.

You tend to see things when you're a wide-eyed first-timer that you don't always see when you're a sage veteran. And this first-timer was willing to share. Students might appreciate these insights as they go into the exam in May.

Pool Cubes 2: Buoyancy - new PhET activity

2011-06-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

PhET has added fluid statics to their physics repertoire. I wrote an activity for their Density sim. But it needs a bit of polish, so I'll post that one later. In the meantime, enjoy this tech lab that uses the new PhET Buoyancy sim.

Pool Cubes 2: Buoyancy (PhET page)

The purpose is to investigate the nature of the buoyant force and to see the role it plays in determining whether or not an object floats. The ability to use a variety of objects in the liquid and to vary the density of the liquid makes a number of scenarios possible. Real labs are great, but do you really want to deal with a broad variety of liquids (oil, gasoline, etc.) in the laboratory?

I wrote the activity for my AP Physics B students, so it gets mathematically robust toward the end. Nothing they can't be able to handle with a bit of algebra.

The groovy "3-D" graphics and textures used in the new sim are great. The science has to be right, of course. But once the substance is established, why not have some style?

AAPT workshop and contributed talk

2011-06-16T06:00:00.000-07:00

If you're headed for Nebraska to frolic with fellow physics friends this summer please come see me! The American Association of Physics Teachers will be meeting July 30-August 3 at Creighton University and the Doubletree by Hilton in Omaha.

My friend, Matt Lowry, and I will be presenting "Skepticism in the Classroom," W42, Sunday, July 31 from 1pm to 5pm in HLSB 523. We will present a variety of lessons, appropriate for the physics classroom, that focus on the skeptical and critical thinking nature of science. Some lessons involve obvious physics content; some bring in examples from the real world. Participants will leave with ready-to-use lessons (video clips and student worksheets) and resources designed to bring healthy, scientific skepticism to their classrooms. Topics will include firewalking, ghosts and angels, balance bracelets, the credulity of local media, and more.

I'll be presenting a talk on Tuesday, August 2 at 2:15pm in the SS Ballroom F. It's part of session EJ: Recruiting Students to High School Physics, which begins at 1:15pm. My presentation is EJ03, "One Mad Man's Campus Campaigns." The abstract: In good times you should advertise, in bad times you must. As the son of an advertiser and a marketer, I have always valued advertising as a recruitment tool. As a high school physics teacher, I have been motivated to maintain or increase my "market share" each year. I have used "dog and pony shows," personalized direct mail campaigns, and a variety of flyer and poster designs. I will detail the relative efficacy of the various campaigns and share specific designs and slogans I have used over the years.

I hope to see you in Omaha.

Power Force is brought to you by the number "8ight"...

2011-06-15T12:00:00.000-07:00

and the letters BS.

When it became clear that people would fork over cash for some mylar glued to a rubber band, entrepreneurs wanted a piece of the action.

The proprietors of Power Balance proved there was a gold mine in fraudulently marketed wristbands. The company raked in millions using celebrities to promise customers that their product would enhance power, balance, flexibility, and endurance.

How can a wristband do this? It can't. Power Balance claimed that a frequency of 7.83 Hz was embedded in the band's hologram, and that 7.83 Hz was the frequency of the body's energy field.

This is all very impressive, except that the body has no "energy field," so it doesn't resonate at 7.83 anything. And you can't "embed a frequency" in a hologram if you wanted to.

The trickery used in the demonstrations showing the efficacy of the wristbands is well understood. (A complete take-down lesson plan with videos exposing the trickery can be found at Skepticism in the Classroom.)

Take-downs and exposés aside, Power Balance has raked in so much cash they could afford to purchase the naming rights to Sacramento's Arco Arena, now known as Power Balance Pavilion.

The copycats at Power Force wanted to cash in on the boom. They upped the ante by securing licensing agreements with major colleges and universities. So their impotent bracelets bear CU's iconic Buffalo logo and Berkely's "Cal."

And Michigan's block M. My own alma mater bit on this BS, sacrificing integrity for the promise of a shekel. Power Force can delight in having the tacit approval of major research institutions—institutions with Nobel laureates in science.

Power Force doesn't claim its wristbands harness the power of frequency-embedded holograms. No, they leverage the magic of "negative ion technology." They don't detail exactly what negative ion technology is; they presume buyers know that it's something real.

If you visit the Power Force website, clicking on the "Power behind Power Force" tab gets you to this:

Power Force Apparel powered by 8ight is the official sports band provider for your favorite colleges and universities, providing officially licensed products bearing each school's logo and colors.

While Power Force makes no medical or scientific claims, negative ion technology can be found in all Power Force products. The pride that comes from athletes and fans supporting their schools with Power Force products is beneficial to everyone that wears them.

Support your school and your team 365 days a year with Power Force Apparel Powered by 8ight.

One sees the "Powered by 8ight" tag line all over the Power Force site. What is 8ight? Take a look. Mind you, no medical or scientific claims are made. None whatsoever.

If you can watch that without throwing up in your mouth, I salute you!

So which institutions of higher learning have traded their integrity for snake-oil cash? In the Big Ten, it's Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska (!), Northwestern, Penn State, Purdue, and Wisconsin. Somehow Indiana, Iowa, Michigan State, and Ohio State resisted the merch-licensing instinct on this scam.

In the Pac 10, the suckers are Arizona, Arizona State, California, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, and Washington State. Kudos to UCLA, USC, and Stanford for having self-respect.

A complete list of NCAA sell-outs can be found at Power Force's catalog.

I no longer support my alma mater when they reach out for donations. I kindly assure them (via their telemarketers and direct mail solicitations) that they'll earn far more money from their deal with ~~The Devil~~ Power Force than I could ever hope to give. No doubt this paints me as a miserly curmudgeon. I'd love to renew my support, but I can't while Michigan partners with an outfit of charlatans.

By the way, nothing in this post should be interpreted as libel toward anyone or anything. I am powered by skepticism and critical thinking.

Why I am Excited about TAM Vegas 2011

2011-06-15T11:41:00.000-07:00

James Randi Educational Foundation president, D.J. Grothe details his enthusiasm and anticipation of the upcoming TAM9 From Outer Space. It's gonna be big, and it's gonna be good.

If you're on the fence about attending, read his post.

Paul Hewitt visits Rio Americano

2011-06-12T23:11:00.000-07:00

The educational value of the last day of school is rightly debated. It's the day after graduation; seniors have been gone for several days. Final exams are over. There is no new material to teach or learn. Options for disciplining misbehavior are limited.

We spend years making our students smart, so they realize that consequences for unauthorized absence or failure to keep to their daily schedule are minimal. The result is that many students do not show up, and the ones who do feel entitled to some degree of off-task behavior. Teachers the foil off-task behavior potential by not offering a task to stray from.

Friday, June 10, however, was the best Last Day of School we ever had in the history of Rio Physics. Conceptual Physics author, Mr. Paul Hewitt came for a visit! In the casual setting of the day, he answered student questions, offered sage advice to students, posed for pictures, and signed autographs (with cartoons to boot).

We were able to visit physics colleague, Mrs. Lucy Jeffries, on her last day at Rio and say "hi" to the principal, Mr. Brian Ginter, and vice-principal, Mrs. Vanessa Adolphson as well.

Hewitt was welcomed by physics students who appreciated his textbook and saw him in action in his Conceptual Physics Alive! videos. I will freely admit bias in this matter, but I cannot imagine the author of any other textbook used on campus being given so enthusiastic a reception had they paid a visit. If I'm wrong, please correct me in the comments. Non-physics students were coming in to get pics and autographs!

Hewitt had a great time at Rio. He found the campus to be beautiful and the students to be delightful.

One student put it best in the caption of the Hewitt "groupie" shot he immediately posted to his Facebook profile. As if to chide those who skipped or slept through Hewitt's visit, he posted his prize pic with the note, "You so jelly I could make you my lunch!"

If you're a student who got a shot with Mr. Hewitt, send it to me and I'll add it to the album linked below.

Hewitt at Rio photos at Flickr.

2011 class portraits

2011-06-12T22:35:00.000-07:00

Here they are: the class portraits of Rio Phyz 2011.

1st Period AP Physics

2nd Period Physics

4th Period Physics

5th Period Physics

6th Period Physics

The full Flickr album is here.

The Go-Girls also produced a video goodbye featuring 6th period students. I'm pretty sure it was recorded while I was out on federal jury duty.

I must hasten to point out that many of my students would disagree with the sentiments expressed in the video. But that doesn't diminish my delight of the video-gift that "db" is.

Zangle in Chapter 11 bankruptcy?

2011-06-08T20:00:00.000-07:00

How did I miss this news?

I'm not dancing a jig, mind you. I like Teacher Connection to some extent. Partial kludge, but it's operationally functional. Not prone to crashes or downtime.

Gradebook, however, is an unforgivable kludge that I find completely unusable.

My sense is that day-to-day operations will continue without interruption.

Still though.

Hula Hoop-cam: The world goes for a spin

2011-06-07T15:55:00.000-07:00

The Go Pro is a small, light-weight camera capable of still photography and video capture. Here's what happens when you attach one to a Hula Hoop and attach the Hula Hoop to a skilled practitioner. Those inclined toward motion sickness should probably not go full-screen on this one. Everyone else? What are you waiting for!

Gyrational hula spins to PTSOSer Zeke Kossover and Exploratorium guru Paul Doherty.

The Greatest Music Video Ever Made

2011-06-05T16:27:00.000-07:00

If you haven't seen the video, you probably should. Roger Ebert dubbed it "The Greatest Music Video Ever Made." That's a thumb's way up from the celebrated movie critic.

There were certainly artistic reasons for using Don McLean's classic, "American Pie." But some readers might associate that title with an endless series of teen movies bearing the same name. That's OK. The writers and director responsible for American Pie hail from East Grand Rapids (Gerald Ford's old stomping grounds). In the films, their high school goes by the name "East Great Falls" to protect the innocent. The movie was shot in southern California, of course. The high school shots were filmed at Robert A. Millikan High School. Physics Connection!

If you think the GR Lip Dub video is a frivolous follow-shot, that's because you didn't watch it through to 6:24.

According to my test-marketing in the Sacramento high school demographic, the "I met a girl who sang the blues" boy is surprisingly cute. Until I showed this video, I was the sole representative of what people from Grand Rapids look like at my school. I assured my students that there are, in fact, cute people in Grand Rapids. It was news to them!

It's been fun here at the end of the year to ask students some details on how, exactly, the video was recorded. It's clearly a one-shot take that winds through the streets and walkways and bridges of downtown Grand Rapids. But how does the camera operator get around? More than two modes of transportation were involved.

One small puzzle I haven't researched to fruition is the version of "American Pie" used for the lip dub. It's not the famous studio version from the album of the same name. Nor is it the live version from McLean's Greatest Hits Live! album, recorded in 1980. So the lip dub version is unavailable on iTunes.

And as I tried to convince my friends at PhET, no on-going concern that hopes to promote its cause does so without a T-shirt. Or several. GrandRapidsLipDub is no different.

UPDATE: I found the "American Pie" source performance on YouTube.

Nothing beats xkcd

2011-06-02T04:44:00.000-07:00

Los Gatos physics teacher, Dan Burns, alerted the AP Physics EDG of another xkcd comic. It's brilliant (in the British sense of the word.) I for one frequently enjoy xkcd; Randall Munroe's humor really resonates with me.

XKCD Turn Signals

Seventy-five cents never went so far

2011-06-01T04:44:00.000-07:00

I end the Physics 1 year with light and wave optics. Ray optics has been bumped to AP Physics 2. This helps to forestall the post-CST and post-AP doldrums that might otherwise take root. By the way, when students complain they can't do this or that because they suffer from Senioritis, I remind them that Senioritis is the disease, physics is the cure, and me? I'm the doctor!

Anyway, we get to rainbows, mirages, blue skies, 3-D movies and more during this season, so it's not so bad for anyone.

When we talk about diffraction, we end up doing an activity called "Diffraction in Action." (I know, too easy.) The activity ends with a pair of "rainbow glasses" being given to each student. Their experiences in the activity to this point allow them to see the glasses as crossed diffraction gratings.

But you'd think the Candyman had come to the room with delicious treats for the little boys and girls. Be prepared for squeals of delight and proclamations that this is the coolest thing ever and that they'll never take the glasses off.

To push the merriment over the top, I ask them to don the glasses and look toward my camera in the front of the room. When the flash pops, their collective shrieks are enough to provoke angry calls from the bowling alley, complaining about the noise we're making.

Worry not about any complaints from colleagues about the distraction that bespectacled students were in their classes. It's for science!

Of course, rainbow glasses don't grow on trees. You have to order them and pay for them. I get mine from Arbor Scientific for $0.75 each (volume pricing), so I can set up all my students for about $100. I've never been denied reimbursement from whichever funding source I've asked.

Blog of Phyz readers already know I'm a sucker for activities that get jaded high school seniors to act like elementary students--if even only for a little while. This active/giveaway meets that criterion with happiness to spare.

Diffraction in Action (PDF)
Diffraction in Action Answers (PDF)

Watchers of the skies

2011-05-31T04:44:00.000-07:00

Watchers of All! Clearly, I would have chosen a different soundtrack, but it's an amazing video nonetheless. Telescopes busy chasing a sky spinning with wonders.

I like the modern design and integrated ventilation control/temperature equilibrating systems.

Don't mess with... Grand Rapids?

2011-05-28T06:02:00.000-07:00

I suppose it's only natural for those toiling away in a dying medium to want to point a finger at something else and say, "Hey, that's dying, too!" But when the once-proud print journalism outlet, Newsweek, called my hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan a dying city, they invited some blowback.

Grand Rapidians put together some time, talent, energy, and a relatively wee budget to produce a video that rivals OK Go's "This Too Shall Pass" or Feist's "1234" in planning and execution. And it set a record for "lip dub" videos.

Take a look.

No snark. No hate. No Newsweek-bashing. Just enthusiasm and joy. And orchestration, timing, steady-cam dolly work and blocking!

The video went live and was forwarded to Newsweek's Facebook page early and often by dwellers of the dead city. Newsweek retreated:

"we want you to know [the list of dying cities] was done by a website called mainstreet.com--not by Newsweek (it was unfortunately picked up on the Newsweek web site as part of a content sharing deal)--and it uses a methodology that our current editorial team doesn't endorse and wouldn't have employed. It certainly doesn't reflect our view of Grand Rapids.

Nice work, Grand Rapids!

Egg Toss - Texas style!

2011-05-27T05:18:00.000-07:00

Physics teacher Jean Gifford found our "Egg Toss" activity deep in The Book of Phyz and thought it might be worth a try at Taylor High School in the Lone Star State.

When we scramble our eggs in late October here in Sacramento, the temperature on Grass Omelet Field sometimes exceeds 80°F.

Mid-January in Central Texas is a different story, as the photos indicate.

But Mrs. Giffords assures me that Taylor's physics students had a great time and learned their impact-time-reduces-impact-force lessons well.

Thanks to Jean Gifford and her talented students for sharing the experience. (And apologies for the magnitude of the interval between your sharing and my posting.) Go Ducks!

The Fringe of Optics - a new PhET activity

2011-05-26T05:18:00.000-07:00

The geometry and trigonometry of interference patterns is non-intutive to students. I think it's non-intutive to most of us. Doing real lab work in this area is recommended. But the equipment and time requirements can be daunting.

This sim can be used in conjunction with a lab activity, or in place of one (in a pinch). Its intent is to develop the basic relationship governing the geometry of a two-slit interference pattern, and then to work with that relationship.

The activity uses the PhET sim, Wave Interference.

The Fringe of Optics (PhET page).

Bending Light - a new PhET sim

2011-05-25T05:18:00.000-07:00

The good people at PhET have launched a new physics simulation into the world.

Bending Light. It's a robust refraction sim with many tools and options. PhET says:

Explore bending of light between two mediums with different indices of refraction. See how changing from air to water to glass changes the bending angle. Play with prisms of different shapes and make rainbows.

PhET sims now have an "embed" feature (very groovy). So click on the screen shot below to launch the sim, itself!

Click to Run

Entertaining equilibrium

2011-05-24T05:18:00.000-07:00

If this guy's not a Libra, I shall renounce my faith in Zodiacal Astrology.

Wait: I have no faith in Zodiacal Astrology. Durn.

But what a lesson in balanced torques! And a nice soundtrack, too. The Hebrew of the video's title translates to "Amazing Performance and Power Balance," according to Google Translate.

Your assignment: make a clever number puzzle (standard physics numerical problem) out of this.

Hat tip: Marion Gribskov (my distinguished Rio Phyz predecessor).

Radioactive Speed Dating - a new PhET activity

2011-05-23T10:00:00.000-07:00

PhET's "Radioactive Dating Game" sim has a fun game-like element to it.

Too much for me to resist, and why would I? So I wrote an activity to exploit the competition potential of the sim. Since time was of the essence in this competition, the title wrote itself.

Radioactive Speed Dating

FAIL

2011-05-21T05:35:00.000-07:00

Saturday, May 21, 2011.

Sunday, Mat 22, 2011.

Rest in peace, $100M Family Radio media empire...

Go gentle into that good night...

Let not the door of history hit the backside of your foolishness upon your hurried exeunt...

May 21 really was Judgment Day, and you (Harold Camping/Family Radio) were found wanting...

Fifteen minutes with your "Prophesy" were as 15,000 hours...

OK, I'll stop. But if you saw my Scientist Valentines, you know I could go on. And on.

See for yourself why the GOP fears Goodwin Liu

2011-05-20T20:14:00.000-07:00

Rio alum's court nomination exposes GOP hypocrisy

2011-05-20T07:15:00.000-07:00

Goodwin Liu (Rio '87) was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve on the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals. I wrote about Professor Liu before, and about his nomination. While Liu was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, frightened Republicans prevented an up or down vote on Liu's nomination. So the President renominated Liu. The Senate continued to dither, so the President renominated Liu again.

Liu is a brilliant legal mind. He is a prize-winning scholar who clerked for Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Rio Americano, Stanford, Oxford, and Yale Law can claim this Rhodes Scholar as one of their own.

Yesterday, though, the Senate voted to filibuster Liu's nomination rather than allow an up or down vote. A cloture vote was lost as 43 votes against outweighed 52 votes in favor. The vote exposed many among the GOP as pure hypocrites.

Senator John Cornyn of Texas wrote in a 2004 law review article: "Wasteful and unnecessary delay in the process of selecting judges hurts our justice system and harms all Americans. It is intolerable no matter who occupies the White House and no matter which party is the majority party in the Senate... Filibusters are by far the most virulent form of delay imaginable."

But Cornyn was good to go with the Liu filibuster.

Senator Lamar Alexander said in the Congressional Chronicle in 2005: "I pledged, then and there, I would never filibuster any President's judicial nominee, period. I might vote against them, but I will always see they came to a vote."

But Alexander was good to go with the Liu filibuster.

And Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia said in 2005: "I will vote to support a vote, up or down, on every nominee. Understanding that, were I in the minority party and the issues reversed, I would take exactly the same position because this document, our Constitution, does not equivocate."

But Isakson was good to go with the Liu filibuster.

And Senator Orrin Hatch in a Senate floor statement in 2007: "We may not use our role of advise and consent to undermine the President's authority to appoint judges... It is wrong to use the filibuster to defeat judicial nominees who have majority support, who would be confirmed if only we could vote up or down. That is why I have never voted against cloture on a judicial nomination."

But Hatch was OK with the Liu filibuster.

So much fear and loathing directed toward a highly-qualified nominee with bipartisan support from left, right, and center. I understand the fear among far-right extremists. Liu is a brilliant left-of-center legal mind. He is Supreme Court material.

The fact that he has the support of Kenneth Starr and Richard Painter might worry liberals. And his support of charter schools and government-funded vouchers for private schools hardly aligns Liu with the Left!

Fortunately, Liu is young. Time is on his side. His star is on the rise.

The GOP also shot itself in the foot as far as Asian voters are concerned. Some are angrier than others.

I am very proud of Goodwin Liu. And I know his story doesn't end here.

Wednesday's power outage at school...

2011-05-19T03:48:00.000-07:00

was a bit of a disappointment, actually. Power cuts at school typically happen in the late morning or early afternoon in conjunction with wild, windy, stormy weather. Wednesday, the power was off at the beginning of the day.

No worries. I deployed Operation: PowerOn!

I'm lucky enough to have permanent access to a lab set of MacBooks: 10 laptops on a charging cart (a lasting legacy of Digital High School). The school purchased The Mechanical Universe High School Adaptation on VHS circa 1990, and repurchased the set on DVD a few years ago. I was able to rip each episode (via Handbrake and VLC), turn them into QuickTime files, and load them onto each laptop. (This also comes in handy when a student misses the in-class presentation and needs to make it up at lunch or after school.)

We have a class set of headphones and signal splitters for use during computer-based sound wave labs. Three splitters will turn one stereo jack into four, so four students can watch one laptop screen and listen to their presentation without being distracted by the other computers' audio programs.

It worked flawlessly: the class spent the first 20 minutes of class watching "The Wave Nature of Light" and answering questions from the video sheets I give out when we watch this episode in class under normal circumstances.

In truth, the power came on about 10 minutes in and I could have aborted Operation: PowerOn. But sometimes the return of power is fleeting and uncertain: it's up, then it's down, and back up. I didn't see any need to take a chance when the contingency plan was going so well.

Operation: PowerOn successfully negotiates the power cut conditions: No AC means no projecting and no surfing the Interwebs. The room is dark, illuminated by whatever light comes in through the windows. But charged laptops can last for hours.

Had the power remained out, we had a PhET activity lined up, and since I loaded the full PhET installation on each laptop, no Internet connection was needed.

I'd be lying if I didn't admit to some sense of smug satisfaction that comes from being prepared for such an outage. But I hate feeling powerless when the power goes out or surrendering the time to waste. And my students were great about it; no complaints of having to do a physics lesson when the lights were out. They jumped on it and completed the lesson like pros.

Corner Refractor - "Figuring Physics" in the May TPT

2011-05-17T20:46:00.000-07:00

Paul Hewitt (author, Conceptual Physics) contributes a "Hewitt Drewitt" physics cartoon puzzle to each issue of the American Association of Physics Teachers magazine/journal, the aptly titled The Physics Teacher.

This month's "Figuring Physics" a refraction puzzle that came to me last year while retooling an interactive classroom lesson.

Corner Refractor (PDF)

Hewitt would implore you to wait before getting to the solution. And all the "Figuring Physics" puzzles are intended as "Next Time Questions," meaning you give them to students one day, and don't provide answers until next time, no matter how compellingly students beg.

Corner Refractor - Solution (PDF)

I'm delighted whenever I can conjure something good enough for Paul Hewitt to use in the column. "Figuring Physics" requires the right balance of trickiness and accessibility, novelty and familiarity. They're not easy to write.

If you've got one, send it in! He's always keen to have more.

Need some inspiration? Or just looking for more where this one came from?

Hewitt's Next-Time Question Archive at Arbor Scientific.

Pixel Peeping - a new PhET activity

2011-05-15T17:38:00.000-07:00

PTSOS colleague, Dan Burns, has his students look at pixels through a small, powerful magnifier. Five years after he shared this idea at a PTSOS workshop, I finally figured out a way to make this work for my own students. (I'm kinda slow.)

It involves the use of PhET's Color Vision sim in addition to a magnifier.

Having run a few early drafts in class, I will warn you that you'll hear many involuntary expletives of amazement while students undertake this investigation. They've been looking at displays all their lives. And they never knew what was going on at the microscopic level.

I'm always a fan of activities that get even the most jaded, "been there, done that" high school teenager to revert to the sense of wonder they had in elementary school. Even if only for a few moments. So I can recommend this one without hesitation.

Pixel Peeping at PhET

Zombie Marie Curie is here!

2011-05-09T23:57:00.000-07:00

and well-intentioned marginalizers gonna have some 'splainin' to do.

Dig in! (Click the first panel to get the rest of the story.)

TAM 9 From Outer Space

2011-05-07T17:00:00.000-07:00

This is your friendly reminder to get it in gear if you want to go to this year's premiere celebration of science, skepticism, and critical thinking. The Amaz!ng Meeting 2011 (TAM 9) will be held July 14-17 at the South Point Hotel, Casino, and Spa in Las Vegas.

The luminaries scheduled to appear include Bill Nye (The Science Guy), Mythbuster Adam Savage, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Lawrence Krauss, Richard Dawkins, Michael Shermer, Phil Plait, PZ Myers, magicians Penn & Teller and Banachek, Skepics' Guide to the Universe and Skepticality talents, awesome Aussies Karen Stollznow and Richard Saunders, Brit-wit Richard Wiseman, entertainer George Hrab, and many, many, many more.

It's difficult to describe this conference beyond the term, "Amazing." I will say that I've been to TAMs 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, and that I intend to go as long as
a. they are held and
b. I am alive.

For what it's worth, I do not make that claim regarding any other conference or meeting series that I attend other than TAM.

The attendance for TAM has grown every year (and throughout the Great Recession) because if you're anything like me, you get hooked at your first TAM and never miss another. Best. Addiction. Ever.

The Amaz!ng Meeting 2011: TAM 9 From Outer Space!

Shine a Light

2011-05-07T15:33:00.000-07:00

The good people at PhET have produced a sim called "Photoelectric Effect." As they describe it, "See how light knocks electrons off a metal target, and recreate the experiment that spawned the field of quantum mechanics."

I wrote an activity to go with it. In honor of Paul Hewitt's affection for The Rolling Stones (and because it's the right title for the activity), I called it "Shine a Light."

As of this post, I haven't uploaded the instructor's notes and answers to questions. But for the adventurous among you, I think you'll find the activity very straight forward.

Shine a Light PhET activity page.

The end of the world is coming (again)

2011-05-07T13:25:00.000-07:00

Excuse me while I don't stifle a yawn.

Harold Camping has pegged May 21, 2011, as the day that good Christians will be raptured and Judgment will begin. "It is going to happen, There is no Plan B," he says. Camping is the 89-year old founder of Family Radio, a $100,000,000 media network. Family Radio's financial situation improves as Camping's followers surrender their personal wealth to his empire. He assures them money will have no value on May 22.

Camping, like pretty much anyone else who predicts the end of the world these days, is
1. a self-styled "Christian" who has personally cracked the Bible's secret code to learn the date of The End.
2. confident that he'll be afloat during the Rapture.
3. a veteran of at least one End of the World prediction that failed.

Oh yes, he wrote not one, but two voluminous tomes (1994? and Are You Ready?) declaring that the Rapture and Judgment would commence in 1994. In conceding the obvious, he confessed to not looking into the Book of Jeremiah, which is apparently a very important source of end-times data. Last time he was wrong; this time he'll be right. No really!

The Family Radio army is on the march, spreading "The Word." What should we expect on Judgment Day? Camping's followers say that "starting in the Pacific Rim at around the 6 p.m. local time hour, in each time zone, there will be a great earthquake, such as has never been in the history of the Earth." Sounds frightening.

I decided this is teachable moment. There is no end-of-the-world theory so wacky that hoards of followers won't climb on board. But I'm not keen to have any of my students jump on those bandwagons.

So I prepared a poster listing some of the most prominent end-of-the-world. About 50 of them, on a 17" x 22" poster. (This kind of thing happens when you can make 17" x 22" prints. Anyway, I think it looks pretty good. I'll post it for the May 21 End of the World. I'll post it again for the December 21, 2012 End of the World. And I'll post it for any other Ends of the World that happen between or beyond those dates.

I worried that taking on Camping and Family Radio would give offense to my Christian students, but was assured (from all corners) that it would not. He ranks up there with the Westboro Baptists for giving Christians a bad image. Delusional nut cases who profit by spreading fear do not qualify for "tolerance." They qualify for scrutiny and example-making. Which is not to say derision and mockery are off the table.

THE END OF THE WORLD! ...has happened before (many times). (PDF, native at 17" x 22")

National Public Radio's story on the May 21, 2011 end of the world story.

Harold Camping's Family Radio.com

Connecting the Dots

2011-04-19T11:32:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in a previous post, a PTSOS participant alerted me to the prospect of constructing a wave machine with Gummy Bears.

I was intrigued enough to give it a shot.

The inertial candies used in the original were the UK-specific Jelly Babies. Sure, we have Gummy Bears (and Gummi Bears) here in the states. But their masses are significantly less than those of the Jelly Babies.

A Jelly Baby packs 6 grams of gelatinous sugar into its plump, opaque body. A Gummy Bear gets by with a mere 2.5 grams of see-through, rubbery gel. It could be eaten by a Swedish Fish for a twist of confectionary irony.

I opted for Dots, a product of the Tootsie corporation. They're nearly 4 grams each. (I didn't know the actual mass of a Jelly Baby until after our in-class project).

My OCD tendencies required that step 1 of the project was to sort the five flavors/colors of Dots. The Wikipedia entry for Dots says that Tootsie claims all flavors are produced in equal amounts. We found that cherry red outnumbered any other flavor by more than 2-to-1.

The rest of the project is represented fairly well in the video I produced and uploaded to YouTube. (Curiously, I produced the video in Apple's Keynote, which allowed me to include some nice construction animations.)

A draft PDF of the student lab activity write-up can be found here:
Connecting the Dots.

If you have trouble opening the PDF, welcome to Snow Leopard 10.6.7, the update that unceremoniously broke Open Type Fonts. It seems it won't open in Safari or Acrobat, but it will open in Firefox (with its PDF plugin), and it will open in Preview, oddly enough. One hopes this will be addressed in 10.6.8, whenever that comes out.

ExploratoRio 2011 photo prelims

2011-04-06T17:48:00.000-07:00

While hosting ExploratoRio, I try to snap a photo or two. That's probably a bad idea, since there are so many mini-crises I should be resolving. And I should spend more time greeting the visiting teachers and chaperones. And I have students who are supposed to be snapping pics all day long. But I can't help myself.

Here is a preliminary set to show for our efforts until the student photos comes in. With any luck, they will have minded shooting details better than I did.

But for now...

Oh, we did have 14 elementary classes visit from 8:30am-12:30pm. That translates to about 400 students (in addition to my 150). It's not a trivial matter for teachers to coordinate a field trip to come visit us, so it was especially delightful to see so many young investigators throughout the day.

The rooms were rockin' all day. The little ones were impossibly cute and overflowing with unrestrained enthusiasm as they pulled each other over to their favorite exhibits. Their unvarnished expressions of wonder and joy could make you cry.

ExploratoRio is coming (and I may try something new)

2011-04-04T07:11:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: ExploratoRio evening program has been bumped up. It will run from 6:30pm to 8:00pm.
It seemed so far off when we began preparations six weeks ago, but April 6 is rapidly approaching. That's the date of Open House, so that's the date of ExploratoRio 2011.

Student exhibitors have been building and researching their exhibits. Elementary class hosts have booked every visitation slot on the schedule; we should have young explorers visiting from 8:30am to 12:30pm.

I spent a few hours in the classroom over the weekend to beat back the entropy of of the school year. I was also inspired to develop a new "snack." Over the years I have developed a handful of ExploratoRio Science Snacks for students to choose from, in addition to the Exploratorium Science Snacks published in Square Wheels and the original Exploratorium Science Snackbook.

My new snack is "Wristbandits," inspired by the recent renaming of Sacramento's ARCO Arena to Power Balance Pavilion. Earlier this year, I developed an in-class lesson exposing the pseudo-scientific hoax that the highly-popular wristbands (with or without holograms) represent.

With the onset of ExploratoRio, I thought it would be nice to have an exhibit exposing the methodology of the fraudulent demonstrations used to promote the bracelets. Once I was struck with an appropriate title, it was on.

All I need now is to draft some student exhibitors to present it. In any case, we set up tomorrow after school, clearing the room from 3-5pm and installing the exhibits from 5-6pm. ExploratoRio runs from 7:50am-12:30pm and ~~7:00pm-8:30pm~~ 6:30pm-8:00pm Wednesday. By ~~10:00pm~~ 9:00pm Wednesday, it will be as if nothing ever happened: the classroom will be a classroom again, ready for regular use on Thursday morning.

My HS Physics to California Physics Alignment

2011-04-02T21:04:00.000-07:00

In the residue of the school's recent WASC evaluation process, there is an interest in increased "transparency." There was a sense that we're doing well as far as instructional outcomes go, but that it's difficult for outside parties—themselves not a part of the school's community—to see how we do it. And it's been decided that that is something of importance.

Action plans are being formulated. Benchmarking and data-generation are priorities. Interest is keen in collecting data to demonstrate student attainment of the school's Expected Schoolwide Learning Results. [I would have linked to the ESLRs, but either my google-fu is poor or the school's website doesn't offer the document online. And that seems unlikely since each classroom was provided with a 24" x 36" laminated copy.]

Curiously, those ESLRs were fashioned to represent broad, longitudinal goals to be attained over the course of a student's four-year tenure at the school. And that's what ESLRs are supposed to be. Though I travel far and wide, I have never seen data-collection instruments designed to show ESLR attainment.

But ever the student, I'm eager to see effective examples such instruments. And even more eager to see the spreadsheets of the meaningful data generated by such instruments. And the remedial measures that will be enacted to ensure that each graduate will have ESLR data to support their right to walk at commencement. (That in addition to CAHSEE results and adequate academic performance and attendance records.)

To better serve outsiders looking in—now that I'm coming to terms with their priority as stakeholders—I have modified my Physics 1 unit schedules to include actual text of the California 9-12 Physics Standards covered in each unit of study.

And I'm hoping that this alignment document will bring joy to someone who might find value in it. Anything I might have accomplished in the time required to prepare the document will pale in comparison to the fulfillment and reassurance it will provide to outside investigators curious to the methods of our campus.

I am nothing if not a team player.

Hail storm in Sacramento at 240 fps

2011-03-24T01:03:00.000-07:00

We had a pretty heavy downpour of hail at about 5:45 pm on Wednesday, March 23. I grabbed my Casio EX-FH100 and set it to 240 frames per second. From the safety of my eave, I shot a few clips. Pea-sized hail poured down and thunder rolled through. (Always best to go full-screen on these, in my humble opinion.)

I liked the bouncing action apparent near the gutter.

The hail lasted much longer than it usually does (in my experience). So the accumulation was somewhat significant by the end of it all.

These are unedited and may run longer than your patience. If so, skip to the next one or just click pause to stop. Enjoy!

XKCD radiation dose chart

2011-03-20T15:30:00.000-07:00

You'll find news and comment on the nuclear plant situation else on the interwebs.

All I can do is opine that we will very likely need to increase our reliance on nuclear power generation in the future, so we very much need to get it right and pay particular attention to details. Low-bidding and shoddy construction at a coal plant can have bad consequences. The same at a nuclear plant can be widespread devastation. The consequences are too severe for us to be anything less than brilliant on design and construction.

Anyway, in our efforts to Know Nukes, XKCD has prepared a nice chart. Worthy of printing on whatever large-format printer you have access to. It makes a graphical display of radiation doses from natural background up to lethal.

And West-coasters, it's still safe to play outside.

XKCD Radiation Chart

Brainiacs electric fence redux

2011-03-20T15:07:00.000-07:00

Last year I posted a note about a groovy clip from the now-defunct British science show, Brainiac: Science Abuse (Brainiacs for short). I learnt (I mean learned) that one of the featured circuits was, in essence, an R-2R resistor ladder: a design used in digital to analog conversions.

When I showed the clip to this year's classes, I was compelled to stop the video at specific points and pose questions to encourage predictions and discussions. My inner teacher at work once again.

I've now chopped the original clip up and worked it into a presentation so I could add questions and illustrations where appropriate.

I also developed a brief student worksheet to accompany the video demo. It's what I like to do.

The zipped QuickTime of the preso is kinda hefty (the embedded video bulks it up to nearly 400 MB). And as with all my interactive QuickTimes, it won't stream. You need to download it, unzip it, and run it. But only if you want to!

I think it's worth the time. Your mileage may vary.

Electric Fence zipped interactive QuickTime (huge-normous)

Electric Fence student demo question worksheet (not so big)

Closed course—professional driver

2011-03-07T06:00:00.000-08:00

Barrel-rolling a sports car inside a freeway tunnel isn't everybody's idea of fun. But apparently these Mercedes-Benz guys had nothing better to do.

Thanks to Brad Huff for sharing this gem.

UPDATE: Wired's dot.physics has a nice analysis of the physics.