Virtual Demos Maintain—and Broaden—Community Outreach

By:

the SPS Chapter at Texas A&M University-Commerce

Every semester the Department of Physics and Astronomy and SPS chapter at Texas A&M University-Commerce (A&M-Commerce) host a Physics Day event for local high school students and teachers. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2020 our chapter spent a few weeks creating videos while following local and CDC guidelines, which allowed us to provide virtual outreach activities when in-person meetings were not possible. We recorded videos of students presenting physics demos, sharing their research and teaching experiences, and leading virtual lab tours. In the spring of 2021 we recorded a virtual panel addressing questions that local high school students sent in about college life and the life of a physics major at A&M-Commerce. We’ve since shared all of these videos with students and teachers. We also presented at the 2021 Dallas ISD STEM EXPO virtual event and were able to reach an even wider audience. You can check out the videos on our SPS chapter’s YouTube channel at shorturl.at/lwENW.

Miranda Martinez shares her research on x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy as part of the Surface Science Lab at A&M-Commerce.

A&M-Commerce SPS president Keely Scott (left) and vice president Madison Smith perform demonstrations with liquid nitrogen (2) and circuits (3).

A&M-Commerce student Elijah Prince (left) and SPS member Jake Richter provide a virtual tour of a semiconductor physics lab and share their undergraduate research experience. All images courtesy of the chapter.

Additional officers, students, and faculty featured in the videos include James Hirons, Zorayda Martinez, Flint Morgan, Jacob Ward, Ian Jimenez, Michaela Allen, Dr. Anil Chourasia, and Dr. Heungman Park.