Events for AY 2011-2012

LPSA Zone 6 will be meeting again during AY 2011-2012. Planning has not yet been completed for the second meeting of the year which is expected to take place during early November. Watch this web site for details. The first meeting for the year was a Saturday follow-up meeting for the Modeling Method of Instruction and was held on September 17, 2011.

History of Zone 6 Meetings in AY 2010-2012

Our first LPSA Zone 6 meeting was held on September 28, 2010, at ISU's University High School. The theme for the evening was Energy - a topic amenable to all physical science teachers. Tom Holbrook, our host, presented a number of handouts and spoke about energy-related activities he uses in his physics course. Ken Wester provided a number of handouts for energy activities. Carl Wenning conducted a laboratory activity dealing with the definition of kinetic energy. Metal objects of different masses were dropped from different heights under controlled conditions to show that the impact "crater" in a lump of clay which was related to both work and energy.

Our second LPSA Zone 6 meeting on November 16, 2010, at ISU's University High School also went very well. For those of you not in attendance, we shared lots of ideas and several demonstrations relating to the chosen theme for the evening - waves as carriers of energy and information. Our inquiry activities included discovery, demonstration, and a lesson/lab dealing with pinhole projection. There were several handouts from this meeting, including teaching resources relating to image formation from the Modeling Method of Instruction program at Arizona State University.

Our third LSPA Zone 6 meeting, held on February 18, 2011 at ISU University High School, went will. We had a turnout of 15 teachers and teacher candidates. The attendance would have been higher (20) had the event not been postponed one week due to snow. The theme for that evening was stoichiometry. Barbara Gotten from Mt. Zion High School shared a number of resources from both the Modeling Method of Chemistry Instruction as well as of her own creation.

Our fourth and final LPSA Zone 6 meeting for the year took place on Tuesday, April 5th, We met at University High School and Tom Holbrook served yet again as host. There were 10 teachers, teacher educators, and student teachers in attendance. Carl Wenning distributed CPDU paperwork and announced the possibility of a free 2-day Modeling Method of Physics Instruction workshop hosted by the ISU Physics Department in June. Tom then spent about 30 minutes talking about and demonstrating instructional materials of Physics Day activities a regional amusement parks. He also provided everyone the opportunity to work with and download data using LoggerPro and a Vernier unit that contained sensors for force, 3-axis acceleration, and barometric pressure.

Zone 6, in cooperation with the Illinois State University Physics Department, the ISU Center for Mathematics, Science, and Technology (CeMaST) and whiteboardsUSA.com offered two free two-day Modeling Method of Physics Instruction workshop on June 6/7 and June 13/14, 2011. Participants received curricular materials, six tumble buggies, complimentary lunches, and daily refreshments during the working sessions. Door prizes were made available by whiteboardsUSA.com. Participants studied scientific procedures, constant velocity motion, and uniformly accelerated motion. A follow-up Saturday workshop is planned for the autumn.

Our fifth regular LPSA Zone 6 meeting was held on Saturday, September 17, 2011, in the ISU Physics Department. It was a joint meeting of the participants of the summer Modeling workshops and Zone 6 members. Twelve in-service teachers were in attendance for this all-day follow up workshop that ran from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Workshop leaders were Tom Holbrook, Rodger Baldwin, Shane Hanson, Ken Wester, and Carl Wenning. The day started off with Tom Holbrook giving a two-hour presentation dealing with video analysis of 2-D motion using both LoggerPro and Tracker. Both Tom and Rodger Baldwin brought in some demonstrations dealing with forces and projectile motion. The afternoon session provided time for a roundtable discussion about the implementation of Modeling instruction.

Carl J. Wenning, Zone VI co-leader.

(Last updated September 20, 2011, cjw)