TPT WebSights column draft for April, 2006:
WebSights features reviews of select sites presenting physics
teaching strategies, as well as shorter announcements of sites of interest to
physics teachers. All sites are
copyright by their authors. This
column is available as a web page at <http://PhysicsEd.BuffaloState.Edu/pubs/WebSights/>.
If you have
successfully used a site to teach physics that you feel is outstanding and
appropriate for WebSights,
please email me the URL and describe how you use it to teach. The best site monthly will receive a
T-shirt. <macisadl@buffalostate.edu>.
Some
Physics and Science Outreach Web Sites and related links:
Many universities
and colleges have various outreach activities reflected on their web sites. It
would be an impossible task to describe all of these web sites in a short note.
Therefore, I decided to list here the sites which I found useful for designing
and expanding the outreach activities at the University of British Columbia.
University of
British Columbia Public Outreach Site: <http://www.physics.ubc.ca/links/outreach.php
> Our site features outreach activities of the Department of
Physics and Astronomy at the University of British Columbia. Among these are
large public events (Christmas Faraday Science Shows, Saturday Public Science
Lectures), Physics Olympics, science summer camps, science exams, the Physics
Demo Course for future science teachers, etc. The names of the contact people
in charge of the events are also posted.
The Physics
Outreach Web Site at Purdue University will be very useful for teachers who are interested
in extra curricular activities for their students as well as for physics
faculty thinking about creating such opportunities at their institutions: <http://www.physics.purdue.edu/outreach/>.
The Department
of Physics at the University of Florida has a useful site featuring their new science exhibit
as well as other outreach activities: <http://www.physics.purdue.edu/outreach/>.
The Department
of Physics and Astronomy at Rutgers University has a well-established tradition of Faraday Christmas
Science Shows: <http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/~croft/FARADAY.HTML>. The
website not only describes this exciting outreach activity but will also
provide enough information for a physics faculty member interested in putting
up such a show at her campus. Rutgers University also has a Science
Explorer Bus website - describing their science on the road science outreach.
The University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
has also an exciting outreach program, including a traveling science van. The
web site also feature a link to a Physics Van Show On line. <http://van.hep.uiuc.edu/>.
Scientists and
Innovators in the Schools (SITS) is one of the largest outreach organizations in North
America. This organization originated in 1989 in Nova Scotia, Canada and
quickly expanded across the continent. For more information visit: <http://atlanticsciencelinks.dal.ca/sits/> (Nova Scotia section) or <http://www.scienceworld.bc.ca/teachers_outreach/in_your_community/scientistsandinnovators.htm> (British Columbia section).
Contributed by
Dr. Marina Milner-Bolotin, Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of
British Columbia <milnerm@phas.ubc.ca>
A site devoted to
Physics First, a HS science
reform movement to teach high school physics before and as a basis for
chemistry and biology is maintained by Dr. Olga Livanis. Dr Livanis' site collects physics first
literature, strategies for implementation, homeschooling resources, curricular
materials and other physics first sites, texts and programs at <http://members.aol.com/physicsfirst/index.html>.
Contributed by
Dr. Olga Livanis, Department of Chemistry and Physics at the Stuyvesant High
School New York, NY <OLivanis@aol.com>
Dan MacIsaac