Physics education research, electronic materials, and the musings of Christopher Moore, Ph.D.
Apr 27th, 2006
I have a pure policy piece today. It’s about energy, so I think it is fair game for ilovephysics.com. Republicans are using rising gas prices to foist an election year gimmick on us, and Democrats are pulling out the “Big Oil” bogeyman to scare us into voting for them. Both camps are full of … [...]
Try this: go to Google and type in “Caveman Science“. Look which site pops up first in Google’s index! Pretty neat. Other cool keywords: The obvious “I Love Physics“. And we almost have wikipedia beat on this one: “superatom“.
Apr 25th, 2006
An old post got an interesting comment yesterday, which got me thinking: was I well compensated as a high-school teacher? The commenter, Doinkicarus, has a few things to say about Michigan’s new tougher graduation requirements that I disagree with. He’s against them. I’m trying to change the culture of education, so I like more required [...]
A Florida physics teacher has been nominated to represent his state for the 2005 Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. Luther Davis will attend a ceremony on May 1st-6th in Washington, DC. The winner will be chosen among the 50 states and will be announced by the President. From the Orlando Sentinel: [...]
Apr 18th, 2006
This is the first in a semi-monthly series of posts highlighting the achievements of high-school physics students across the country. If you know of or are a high-school student who has received a college scholarship because of your achievement in physics, then let me know. After scoring a 5 on both the Mechanics and E&M [...]
Michigan is warning its teacher colleges that they better produce better teachers or else. The Detroit News has the story: State officials want to crack down on state colleges to ensure they are preparing future teachers to meet the state and nation’s rising education standards. Michael Flanagan, the state superintendent of public instruction, now plans [...]
Apr 15th, 2006
Edward Morely advocated the end of “Physics for Poets” yesterday at insidehighered.com. Or did he? Although I believe he is not advocating the end to physics classes for non-majors, I think he does take issue with the conventional wisdom of how such classes should be taught. Conventional wisdom … has it that there are three [...]
Apr 14th, 2006
President Clinton’s former chief of staff and current president of the University of North Carolina, Erskine Bowles, wants his school to pump out more physics teachers. Here’s why from his own mouth: At a time when the world is clamoring for science and engineering talent, about two-thirds of the students in U.S. high schools studying [...]