Science Teaching tips from Lee Trampleasure – Page 12 – Bringing over 30 years of public and private high school teaching experience to help you.

August 1, 2007

Wonderful talk by George Coyne

The capstone of my time here was a talk by George Coyne, SJ. Coyne talk was titled “Dance of the Fertile Universe: Cosmic and Human Evolution.”Coyne is the former Director of the Vatican Observatory (1978-2006), and has written extensively debunking the “Intelligent Design” theory. He gave a quick history of the universe (“if the universe is one year old, scientists...

Science Education Comment: 1

August 1, 2007

So that’s what it feels like…

I’m usually really good at directions. I can spend a few hours in a town and have a good sense of which way is north, where to catch the bus, where the health food store is, etc. However, for some reason I have Greensboro upside down. I keep thinking that the north direction is south. Which leads me to mix...

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July 31, 2007

Slow day… ?

Today was kind of a slow day. I let myself sleep in–till 8:00 🙂 I saw one plenary speaker who discussed his role in international physics education. I found it interesting at the time, but can’t remember many of the details now. The second plenary speaker was Janet Guthrie, the first woman to qualify for the Indy 500, speaking on...

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July 30, 2007

Great workshops at Greensboro

I’m settled in the dorms, and have been sharing with a nice guy from outside Ann Arbor (“NOT” UM, our colors are green). He’s checking out tonight, so I’ll have the room to myself tonight. Sunday I spent the morning in two workshops, the first on using VPython (a computer programming language) to have students create models of physical actions...

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July 28, 2007

Off to Greensboro

I finished the Modeling Physics workshop in Charlotte, and am now sitting in the Tate Street Coffee shop outside UNC Greensboro. I checked into the dorm late this afternoon, and am happily preparing for more physics tomorrow. We finished the workshop on Friday with lunch at a nice Greek restaurant across the street from UNC Charlotte, then I started driving...

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July 21, 2007

Nice weekend in Asheville

Friday afternoon I took Gabriela to the bus station so she could go visit friends for the weekend, then I took off driving up to Asheville to meet Karen. We’re having a great time roaming around Asheville. We’ve had some great food (Tapas, breakfast buffet at the Grove Park Inn (see photo to right), Indian buffet — if there’s one...

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July 18, 2007

So it’s root, root, root for the home team…

they won so it isn’t a shame… Gabriela and I ran some errands after class today and then made it to the Charlotte Knights baseball game in the middle of the sixth inning. Luck for us, the game went 12 innings, so we still got our money’s worth :-). The Knights pulled out a final run in the 12th, and...

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July 18, 2007

Riding the human air puck

Today we rode the “Human Air Puck.” You sit on a piece of plywood with a vacuum in your hands. The vacuum blows air through a hole under the plywood, and you float along. You can see a video of me riding it here. Caution: It’s a big file (2 MB). I’m not sure the exact format of the video...

Science Education Comments: 2

July 17, 2007

It’s too late to write much…

I’ve been getting up on east coast time, but going to sleep on west coast time. This only leaves a few hours of sleep. Today I got back from the workshop and took a two hour nap. Then, it was off grocery shopping with my dorm neighbor Gabriela, and a quick stop at the coffee/bagel corner for decaf. Gabriela tried...

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July 15, 2007

Another day off, another park

Today I ventured east to Crowders Mountain State Park, about 40 miles away. I got a later start on the day, so I didn’t get there until about 2:30. Right when I got there and ready to hike up to King’s Pinnacle, a thunderstorm rolled in. I waited in the car for a while, trying to decide if it would...

General Comment: 1