Detroit Metro-Area Physics Teachers Meeting 2/3/09

The next meeting of the Detroit Metropolitan Area Physics Teachers will be Tuesday, Feb. 3rd. I will be hosting at Divine Child High School in Dearborn, MI. We'll get started with dinner (probably pizza) at 5:30 with presentations beginning around 6:30.

The focus this time will be technology in science education. If you read my blog at all you already know this is what I do for fun, so it goes without saying that I will have a lot to share. But, there will be others sharing as well. So far I know there will be presentation on:

• Vernier and Pasco sensors
• Video Analysis of motion (with LoggerPro and a Free way)
• Free Software for teaching sound
• Moodle
• Google Apps
• Searching for SuperNovae with small Telescopes
• Interactive Physics
• WiiMotes as accelerometers and Interactive White Boards
• Jeopardy PowerPoint game
• Podcasting
  
• Whatever else I can think of between now and then.

After the presentations I will have a number of stations set up to give people a chance to do some of what we've been talking about. I'm also planning on something new. I will set up a camera and broadcast a live stream to the web. Just goto dmapt.org for the live feed.

Below you'll find a series of previews I've been slapping together. They are done in one take and uploaded, so they're a bit rough, but they will give you an idea of what we're doing. Hopefully I'll get another one or two done over the weekend.

Astronomy is Cool

Last night I went to a meeting of the Detroit Metropolitan Area Physics Teachers (DMAPT), a group of local physics teachers who've been meeting for 50 years now. The meeting was at The Sherzer Observatory at Eastern Michigan University Unfortunately it was cloudy, so we didn't get to use the telescopes. However, if you're in SE Michigan the open it up to the public every clear Thursday night .

Anyway, Norb Vance demoed a cool, affordable planetarium that could easily be used in the classroom. Norb showed off the Sega HomeStar Pro. This $250 planetarium device can turn any flat ceiling into a night sky with 10,000 stars. Allowing students to get a better idea of what the night sky would look like if they could get away from the city.


A little searching found the even cheaper HomeStar Pure ($129). The major differences are that the Pro rotates the sky automatically while the Pure has manual rotation and it seems the brightness is different. The Pro says it has 3xLEDs while the Pure only lists one LED. I almost forgot, the Pro includes the ability to have a shooting star go by periodically.

So, is it better then Stellarium which you can get for free? I suppose it depends on what you're trying to accomplish. Norb showed the night sky to great effect and also did a demo of what happens to the night sky with light pollution. Additionally, bu projecting the sky on the ceiling you get a better feel for actual star gazing then you get from a computer screen. That said, however, Stellarium is a totally cool program that I highly recommend.