The Regional Meeting of the American Assoc. of Physics Teachers

Dr. Paula Fekete and Cadets Nguyen and Hellmers attended the regional meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers at Wesleyan University. The two cadets are currently working on a PH489 project in the New Cadet Observatory with Dr. Fekete. Their attendance and presentation at the meeting marked their “first ever” at a scientific conference. The talk was entitled the “History of the West Point Observatories and a History of Astronomy Instruction at the US Military Academy.” They also attended the opening session of the conference in which several demonstrations, originally presented at the first AAPT National Meeting, held at Wesleyan 66 years ago in 1950 were “resurrected” among other interesting, but more recent, demos. Cadets were most impressed by the presentation of Dr. Linda Dake of Utica College. Her talk, entitled “A Multi-Level Seminar for Physics Majors: A Good Deal for Everyone” presented Utica College’s approach to developing and maintaining an engaging and welcoming environment in their small physics department to all physics majors. Cadet Nguyen left the meeting with the idea of trying to implement this model at their own local SPS Club’s meetings, attempting to bring physics faculty and cadets together to discuss physics in the popular science literature.