Saturday, July 22, 2023
By:
Hi!
This week is the biggest week for my internship as I got the opportunity to visit the National American Association of Physics Teachers in Sacramento, California. I have been to many conferences in the past where I present my research on ionic liquids or deep eutectic solvents using x-ray scattering, but this is the first time I get to do something related to Physics education. I got the opportunity to host a one hour workshop where I interacted with teachers about our teaching philosophy, exchanged physics teaching strategies and tools, as well as discussing the current challenges Physics all over the nation face today. I got to meet my mentor for the first time since she is mentoring remotely and I got to attend some AAPT board meetings. In the conference I was able to gave through some sun telescopes as well as attend booths for networking opportunities. I went to the thor labs table and answered some trivia questions about optics and won a shirt merch from their company. After the internship I went to find some dinner, to my surprise, most restaurants closed at nine pm, so I had to walk a few blocks away from the hotel to find a frestaurant opened where I enjoyed some tacos. On my way back to the hotel I took another route since I saw a plaza, and there I saw it was a plaza conmemorating Cesar Chavez, an influential chicano movement leader. I had a great time in sacramento, can't wait to go back to D.C. !
Melissa Cano