The Chicago Section of the
American Association of Physics Teachers

Fall Meeting of the CSAAPT

Saturday, November 11^th, 2006

New Trier High School -- Northfield Campus

8:00-8:30 – Registration

8:30-8:35 – Welcome Tom Senior, Nick Drozdoff & the staff of New Trier

Session I: Chair: Maria Udo, Loyola U., Section President

8:35-9:05 - I Volunteered For This?

Kevin McCarron, Oak Park-River Forest High School

My life as a volunteer at Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, WI. I have volunteered and worked with the people at Yerkes Observatory to do some incredible education and public outreach activities. You won't believe what they let me do! I've helped build robotic observatories and radio telescopes, do planetarium shows half-way around the world, show blind and visually impaired students how to do astronomy, take images with students from urban schools, and that's just a start. Now I'm helping with projects to teach astronomy to teachers from struggling schools, have deaf and hearing impaired students do astrophysics and have science students around the country do new research on supermassive blackholes.

9:05 - 9:20 - Force Fields & Equipotentials: A Proposal for Helping Students Overcome the Barrier to Understanding These Concepts

Paul J. Dolan, Jr., Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago

Typically early in Physics II, we present out students with concepts that are mysterious to them: the Electric Field, and the Electric Potential, which gives rise to discussion of ‘Potential Difference’ and ‘Equipotentials’. Not only are these concepts new to most of the students, but they are additionally hard to grasp, since the ‘physical’ model is not easily visualized, directly. I propose that some of this non-understanding can be avoided by introducing the concepts of potential & field much earlier, in Physics I, and in particular during discussions of the Gravitational Force. This approach is not ‘new’, but is missed in nearly all introductory texts.

9:20 - 9:35 - Reforming Introductory Physics Courses at the Urban Institution

 
Mel Sabella, Kim Coble, and Sam Bowen, Chicago State University, Department of Chemistry and Physics
 
 The physics program at Chicago State University (CSU) is completing its second year of a project supported by a National Science Foundation - Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) Grant.   This funding has allowed CSU to make major changes in how the introductory physics course is taught by implementing a wide variety of research-based instructional materials.  
 Because there has been little work on evaluating the effectiveness of reform-based materials at the urban institution, we have been involved in a systematic investigation that looks at the effectiveness of these materials with CSU's population of students.  
 In this talk we provide a background on our project, discuss the current status, and present an example of our evaluation efforts.  

9:35 - 9:50 - Exploring Red Shift

David Vassallo, Proviso West High School, Hillside, IL 60162

Red Shift™ 5 is an interactive planetarium program that allows the user to simulate the position and movement of 20 million stars, planets, and Deep Sky objects. The observer may view the sky from Earth or from any point in our solar system as it appeared from 4173 BC to 9999 AD. In addition Red Shift includes high-resolution images of astronomical objects as well as the ability to record movies. The basic features of Red Shift will be demonstrated using examples of movies created for high school astronomy demonstrations.

9:50-10:05 The Rotational Dynamics of Tops

Arash Raei and Purav Patel, Loyola University Chicago

Advisor: Dr. Maria K. Udo, Loyola University Chicago

As part of our Freshman Project, we investigated the rotational dynamics of tops, in particular, the tip top. Using a lathe, we constructed tops out of wood. Through trial-and-error and qualitative analysis of center of mass, we were able to figure out the location for the center of mass which would create enough gravitational torque to invert the top. The tip tops were then spun on different surfaces in an effort to observe the effect of surface friction. A strobe light was used to determine the angular velocity of the different tops, and in turn to relate the angular velocity to the tops’ ability to invert.

10:05-10:20 - Break

Session II: Chair: Jan Dudzik, Naperville Central HS, Section Vice-President

10:20 –11:05 - Invited Paper - Physics in Microgravity: The Experiments and The Experience

Lynne Zielinski (Physics) and Vince Pinelli (Broadcasting), Glenbrook North High School, Northbrook

In May 2006, three teachers from Glenbrok North High School in Northbrook, Illinois flew on NASA's C9 Reduced Gravity Airplane at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Two experiments were developed by their students and selected as part of the 100th anniversary celebrations of Albert Einstein's disoveries. NASA, the World Year of Physics, the American Association of Physics Teachers, and the American Physical Society selected six proposals from high school students and teachers nationwide for experiments to be flown on the C-9 aircraft. The "Weightless Wonder" aircraft gave flyers the feel of space as it conducted a series of parabolic maneuvers over the Gulf of Mexico, creating multiple periods of reduced gravity.

This presentation will share with you the process of developing the experiments, the curriculum, the NASA training and preparation for the flight, and the ultimate experience of riding in the "Weightless Wonder". Both experiments will be exhibited and discussed. The first, called "Electrostatics: A Study of the Properties of Granular Materials," explored the behaviors of similarly sized electrostically charged particles in a microgravity environment. It used the understanding of electrostatic monopolar and dipolar fields to see how earthbound theories of electrostatic interactions hold without the influence of gravity.

The second experiment, "Surface Tension: The Art of Science," examined how fluids, in the form of paints, interact with each other in a microgravity setting. In this experiment, students apply their knowledge of Newton's Laws, projectile motion and momentum to understand the fluids' properties of viscosity, surface tension, adhesion and cohesion. The collision of colors during microgravity also produced a scientific work of art.

11:05-11:20 - How I Learned More About Modern Physics?

Annie Rubino, Community High School, West Chicago and Debby Lojkutz, Joliet West High School

Have you ever thought that you would like to add some modern physics to your high school physics curriculum, but you didn’t know where to start? Have you just wanted to learn more about what goes on at Fermi Lab? QuarkNet centers were started several years ago to bring together high school teachers, university professors, and Fermi Lab physicists. The Fermi Lab and UIC groups joined together to create a curriculum guide that we would like to share. We are also looking for area teacher who would like to join our group.

11:20 - 11:35 -A Topological Study of the M5 Flare on 4 November 2004

Emily McLinden, Loyola University Chicago

Advisors: Angela DesJardins and Dr. Dick Canfield, Montana State University

This presentation covers the investigation of the category M5 solar flare on 4 November 2004 that utilized a variety of solar observing instruments and cutting edge software tools to investigate the unique characteristics of this event, in particular the sources of hard x-rays and their relation to the topological features of the magnetic field. The Reuven Ramaty Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) was the main tool for imaging the flare event. Potential field modeling of the magnetic field of the active region was developed using MPOLE software developed by Dana Longcope of MSU. The specific focus of the research was to investigate the location and production of hard x-ray sources and how these sources relate to the main topological feature of interest of the field, the separators. The goal is to further understanding of the reconnection process in solar flares and the locations of such processes and the role this process plays in producing flares. Additional research focused on the energetics of topological features and how this relates to reconnection of the magnetic field and flare production

11:35-11:50 - Stress and Strain Studies on Bridge Designs

Matthew Rickert and Lucas Bukowski, Loyola University Chicago

We investigated three bridge designs, camelback, Pratt and Warren, to test for optimal configurations. Bridges were built using these designs at two different scales, approximately 1:100 and 1:10. We did simulations to determine what to expect from these designs. For each bridge, stress and strain measurements were made for various loads at different parts of the bridge. These measurements were used to decide what type of truss connectors are the best for handling loads. Criteria for connector choice included efficiency, strength and flexibility. Measurements and breaking strength were compared with the scale over which the bridges were built. Results can be used by your students to give them insight when they design their own bridges.

11:50 - 12:20 Invited Paper -- Radio Sources Toward Galaxy Clusters

Kim Coble, Chicago State University, Chicago

Measurements of the cosmic microwave background(CMB) and the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect (SZE) can be used to test models of how structure formed in our universe and answer fundamental questions about the nature of our universe. The CMB, which formed when the universe was only a few hundred thousand years old, is the signature of a once young, hot, dense universe. The SZE arises from the interaction of photons from the CMB with the hot x-ray gas associated with galaxy clusters. Both the CMB and SZE have yielded a wealth of cosmological information and have the potential to yield much more as long as foreground contaminants, such as extra-galactic radio sources, are well-understood. Deep interferometric observations with the BIMA and OVRO arrays are used to characterize the spatial, spectral, flux, and luminosity distributions of radio sources toward galaxy clusters. Finally, we compare our measurements with those of other groups and with theoretical models.

12:20 Take-Fives, Lunch, Business Meeting & Door Prizes

“Ring & Chain”, Tom Senior, New Trier High School

“Magnetic Field Mapping”, Richard Calhoun, Concordia University Chicago

1:15 – 4:00 Workshop –

Video presentation, “Frames of Reference”, Hume & Ivey