PHYSICS & SOCIETY EDUCATION NEWSLETTER
August, 2004
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SUMMER 2004 AAPT MEETING IN SACRAMENTO
A lot happened in Sacramento. Physoc organized an invited/contributed session on "Physics & Society Education: The Environment and Other Societal Issues," a contributed session on "Physics & Society Education: Arms Control and Other Societal Issues," and a crackerbarrel session on "Physics & Society Education." We also played a role in suggesting Sidney Drell as plenary speaker, and in supporting the "Physics and Civic Engagement" session organized by the Committee on Science Education for the Public (CSEP). CSEP was the official sponsor of all of these sessions. The seven invited talks at these sessions were outstanding. The next issue of John Roeder's "Teacher's Clearinghouse Newsletter for Science & Society Education" (discussed further below) will contain summaries of many of these talks. Other sessions of interest to Physoc were the "History of Nuclear Physics" invited session and the "Pseudophysics" invited/contributed session.
Sid Drell's plenary talk was inspiring, and apprehensive about nuclear proliferation. One pertinent quote: "Science literacy is assuming the importance of reading, writing and arithmetic." The talk brought to mind Einstein's statement that "the unleashed power of the atom has changed everything except our modes of thinking, and we thus drift toward unparalleled disaster." Since Einstein was a physicist, we must assume that he felt this statement applied to physicists in particular, including us physics teachers. Are we flexible enough to change our modes of thinking, for example by including societal issues such as nuclear proliferation within our physics courses?
SUMMARY OF CRACKERBARREL SESSION IN SACRAMENTO
About 30 attended. Jane Flood enthusiastically organized and chaired the session, as she has before.
We began by discussing the possible next step in Physoc's evolution. Art Hobson described conversations in Sacramento with CSEP chair John White. John is an enthusiastic member of both Physoc and CSEP, he has a physics-and-society textbook in preparation, and he organized and presided over the excellent "Physics of Civic Engagement" session with invited talks on global warming, energy from fission, energy from fusion, and arms control. He suggests that Physoc align and integrate itself more fully with CSEP. John feels that Physoc fits quite well into CSEP's mission, and that Physoc should volunteer several of its more active members as candidates for the 9-person CSEP committee so that eventually a substantial portion of that committee would be active Physoc people. One active Physoc member, Gordon McIntosh, is already on CSEP.
On a related note, John White reported that AAPT hopes to reduce the number of sessions at future summer meetings. The reason was obvious in Sacramento: too many competing sessions. The meeting either needs to be lengthened, or the number of sessions reduced. Thus CSEP may be able to sponsor only a limited number of sessions (including workshops and crackerbarrels) at future meetings, and so Physoc might need to reduce its number of sessions (because CSEP sponsors Physoc's sessions). John suggested that Physoc organize a session at the winter meetings, something we haven't done before.
Next, we discussed the summer 2005 meeting in Salt Lake City. Crackerbarrel attendees agreed that we should reduce our number of requested invited/contributed sessions from two to one. Everybody agreed that we should also maintain our regular "Crackerbarrel on Physics & Society Education" next summer. A suggestion was made that the crackerbarrel session be extended to 1.5 hours instead of 1 hour, but it was agreed that 1 hour is enough for now.
There were many suggestions about an invited/contributed session next summer: In recognition of 2005 as the "International Year of Physics" and as "Einstein Year," a talk about Einstein as citizen-scientist would be appropriate. A representative of the international "Pugwash" arms control movement could speak about Einstein's involvement with Pugwash and other arms control topics. David Goodstein could be invited to speak on "Out of gas: the end of the age of oil," the title of his recent book (this was suggested as a plenary talk). Other invited speaker suggestions: The US State Department's science advisor, who is said to come from a university in Utah; energy expert Vaclav Smith, who wrote the excellent book "Energy at the Crossroad"; an activist from one of the environmental groups concerned about dams in Utah; somebody who is an expert on the water problems of Utah. It was suggested that the University of Utah might be a good source of speakers. If you have other specific suggestions, please send them to John Roeder, who has agreed to organize and preside over this session.
Everybody agreed that it would be a good idea to organize a session at the next possible winter meeting, which would be the January 2006 winter meeting in Anchorage, and that it should be an all-contributed session titled "Physics and Society Education."
A Physoc website was suggested. Possible uses for the site: Links to other related sites; linking to or posting relevant physics education articles; posting the Physoc Newsletter and other Physoc news. Peter Lindenfeld indicated that he might organize such a website.
If you have comments about any of this, email any steering committee members (listed above), or send a message to the physoc email list.
CSEP NEWS
To supplement the crackerbarrel discussion summarized above, here is CSEP's official mission statement:
1. Seek
ways in which physics concepts and the importance of science instruction can be
effectively conveyed to the public, of all ages and persuasions.
2. Aid
in keeping the AAPT membership informed of the importance of communicating
science and an enthusiasm for science to the public, and of effective means for
doing so.
And
here is a relevant paragraph from CSEP's 2003 Report (available at the CSEP
website, which you can access from http://www.aapt.org/ ): "Another part of our mission is to keep
the AAPT membership informed of communicating science to society. To serve the
large contingent of persons interested in issues related to physics and society
education this committee has been able to sponsor a number of crackerbarrels
and invited/contributed sessions to express the concerns of the physics
community over issues such as the environment, arms control and other societal
issues. There are plans for continued efforts in this area at future
meetings."
You'll
note that the mission statement says nothing specifically about physics-related
societal issues, and appears to be directly primarily toward non-school
education. On the other hand, CSEP is
clearly interested in societal issues, as indicated by the above-quoted
paragraph. Might an additional, third,
point be added to the mission statement?
If so, what should it say?
CSEP
meets at every national (summer, winter) meeting of the AAPT. All AAPT members are permitted to attend
such committee meetings. As Physoc
seeks to integrate more fully with CSEP, Physoc members are especially invited
to attend CSEP meetings. These meetings
are announced in the AAPT Announcer.
Reciprocally, Physoc invites all CSEP members to attend the
"Crackerbarrel on Physics and Society Education" session at next
summer's meeting. Physoc hopes that
there will be a similar crackerbarrel at each summer meeting, and CSEP members
are always especially welcome.
TEACHERS CLEARINGHOUSE NEWSLETTER
Everybody
on this listserv should subscribe to the "Teachers Clearinghouse
Newsletter for Science and Society Education."
Physoc
steering committee member John Roeder edits and publishes this roughly 30-page
document three times a year. It is
essentially a news report on all the topics Physoc holds dear, containing brief
articles, summaries of talks, summaries of meetings (including talks at AAPT
meetings), teaching tips, educational resources, a calendar of important
events, and book reviews. The focus is
on science-related societal topics such as the environment, energy, arms
control, and pseudoscience (Physoc's topics!).
In the next issue, John plans to include summaries of the Sacramento
invited talks by Drell, May, Halsey, Perkins, and Stoker (plenary).
Thanks to
funds from tax-deductible contributions, this newsletter is available for a
ONE-TIME nominal cost of $10 at:
Editor-in-chief, 194 Washington Road, Princeton, NJ 08540-6447, or via
email at JLRoeder@aol.com. John has
sample copies of the Spring 2003 issue that he can send out to anybody who
requests it and provides a mailing address.
PHYSOC EMAIL LIST
At the Sacramento meeting, we added about 30 people to our physoc email list. There are now 210 people on the list. MANY member are removed from the list every year simply because they change their address and don't tell us. If your email address changes, PLEASE INFORM US by emailing ahobson@uark.edu.
To send an email message to everybody on the list, address it to <physoc@listserv.uark.edu>. Think before you hit "Send," because all 210 members will receive your message. Be careful about hitting the "reply" button--you might be replying to the entire list when your response is actually meant for the sender only.
The physoc list is for all of us. Use it for anything you want to share with the group: alert us to publications or talks, alert us to relevant news, send a copy of your own article or letter to the editor, ask the group for information, etc. On the other hand, don't burden us with unnecessary argumentation or with messages that are meant only for a single individual (these should be directed to that individual, not to the entire list).
Our email discussions make a difference! Do spread the word about this list to others who might be interested in physics & society education! If you know anybody who wants to join this list, ask them to email ahobson@uark.edu (do NOT email physoc for this), providing their email address and name (first name first).