On June 9-10, 2016, Kansas NSF EPSCoR continued its successful Atomic, Molecular and Optical (AMO) physics teacher professional development initiative. This year's title was “Modeling the Unseen in the Physical Sciences.” Twenty four high school and middle school physics and physical science teachers from all over Kansas participated in this two day educational opportunity held at Kansas State University (KSU) .
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| Dr. Chris Elles, Dr. Uwe Thumm, Mr. Jared Bixby, and Mr. Zach Conrad |
The objectives for the workshop involved addressing the Science and Engineering Practices listed in the
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), encouraging teachers to use modeling strategies in their lesson planning, and facilitating the opportunity to make curriculum connections to the cutting edge AMO Research occurring in Kansas. Participants reviewed the NGSS with Jared Bixby, Education Curator for the Sunset Zoo, and received an update of the state’s science assessment plan from Zach Conrad, Interim Science Consultant for the Kansas Department of Education.
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| Teachers tour the James R. Macdonald Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics Lab with Dr. Kevin Carnes |
Dr. Kevin Carnes, KSU Research Professor of Physics & Associate Director of Operations JRM Lab, and Dr. Charles W. Fehrenbach, KSU Research Assistant Professor of Physics, led tours of the
James R. Macdonald Laboratory (JRM) explaining the history of the lab, the various lab equipment processes, lasers and the innovative AMO experiments currently taking place in the lab.
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| Penny Blue, Dr. Jackie Spears (KSU) and Dr. Paul Adams (FHSU) facilitate modeling instructional strategy discussions and lesson planning activities |
Penny Blue, a science instructor from Lyons High School in Lyons, KS and teacher participant from last year’s teacher workshop, provided an introduction to modeling instructional strategies. Then teachers were asked to review lessons they currently teach to identify ways to incorporate modeling practices into their instruction. The first day ended with teacher’s discussing takeaways from the the tour and presentations with Dr. Jackie Spears, Professor of Curriculum & Instruction (KSU) and Dr. Paul Adams, Dean of the College of Education, Anshultz Professor of Education, and Professor of Physics at Fort Hays State University (FHSU) as well as preparing questions for the next day's interactive activities working with the Kansas NSF EPSCoR AMO Chemists and Physicists.
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| Round table discussions with Kansas NSF EPSCoR AMO Researchers |
On day two, teachers spent the morning participating in round table discussions with Kansas NSF EPSCoR AMO researchers: Dr. Chris Elles (KU), Dr. Uwe Thumm (KSU), Dr. Bret Flanders (KSU) and Dr. A.T. Le (KSU). Each researcher provided a short presentation of their own research and talked about how they use models in their work. Then, the researchers brainstormed with teachers to ascertain curricular connections to the AMO Research.
During the afternoon session, the teachers were given time to enhance or create lessons to include the Science and Engineering Practices of the NGSS, modeling instructional strategies and curricular connections to the AMO research. As was done last year, the follow-up sessions will include asking some teachers to present their workshop experiences, their new AMO lessons and any lessons learned after teaching those lessons to the Kansas Association Teachers of Science in April, 2017.
A Google Docs repository was created to store the lessons developed at the workshop. Teachers were encouraged to direct their colleagues across the state to use the resources housed in the Google Docs Kansas NSF EPSCoR AMO Physics Lesson Plan Repository.
Education and outreach funding for the physics teacher workshop was provided by the Kansas and Nebraska NSF EPSCoR Track 2 Grant #1430519 titled: "Imaging and Controlling Ultrafast Dynamics of Atoms, Molecules, and Nanostructures." The grant's educational objectives are designed to enhance STEM education in Kansas by supporting activities that will lead to an expanded STEM workforce or prepare a new generation for STEM careers in the areas of atomic/molecular/optical science
Dr. Gisuk Hwang, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Wichita State University, has been awarded an NSF grant through the NSF/ACI's flagship program called XSEDE (the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment). His proposal is titled: Thermal Systems program, with the XRAS title, Optimal Designs of Heterogeneous Nanomaterials for Advanced Thermal Management Systems,
As part of the follow-up activity to the 2015 Kansas NSF EPSCoR Summer Teacher Workshop “Connecting the Physics of Waves and Electromagnetic Radiation with the Next Generation Science Standards,” three physics teachers, Penny Blue from Lyons High School in Lyons, KS; Chery Shepherd-Adams from Hays High School in Hays KS; and Brian Vancil from Sumner Academy in Kansas City, KS presented the lessons they created during the workshop at the 2016 Kansas Association of Teachers of Science (KATS) conference. Dr. Paul Adams, College of Education, Dean Anschutz Professor of Education and Professor of Physics at Fort Hays State University and Dr. Jackie Spears, Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Director of the Center for Science Education in the College of Education at Kansas State University, chaired the session. Both, Dr. Adams and Dr. Spears are Kansas EPSCoR Education and Outreach collaborators.
During the summer workshop, teachers were asked to create lessons that would connect the Kansas and Nebraska NSF EPSCoR Track 2 grant “Collaborative Research: Imaging and Controlling Ultrafast Dynamics of Atoms, Molecules and Nanostructures,” research with the newly adopted Kansas Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) for high school physics. As part of the follow-up the teachers were asked to report back on how the lessons were received in the classroom. In addition, they were invited to speak about their experience at the KATS Conference that was held April 15–16, 2016 in Rock Springs, KS. Penny discussed several key behaviors of electromagnetic radiation by modeling a “Pinhole Camera Activity.” Cheryl created a “Perspective Activity” to demonstrate light wave behavior passing through various devices and Brian explained how he used a simple bread board spectrometer to help students understand Spectrometry and discover that the energy of a photon is proportional to its frequency. The session was well attended and well received.