Friday, August 3, 2018
By:
While sitting in my office watching NASA’s announcement of the next Space Flight Crew, I’ve been thinking about how nice it is to be surrounded by people who care about many of the same issues that I do. When something exciting is happening in the science world, our whole office stops to watch it unfold. It’s been quite an eventful week, and though I do have a couple projects in the office I’m working on, it’s still pretty quiet now that we are in August Recess. With the lull in Congressional work, I’ve been able to take advantage of some other things going on in DC this week.
Saturday started off the 2018 American Association of Physics Teachers Summer Meeting, conveniently hosted in Washington D.C. this year. I was thrilled to attend, as I worked closely with several graduate students and faculty studying Physics Education Research during my time at The University of Maryland, and knew they would be attending. The weekend at AAPT SM18 was filled with workshops. Though I didn’t get to attend any, there was some that looked really interesting. I was happy to see that they were taking advantage of being in DC by integrating plenty of science policy into the meeting. A Congressional Visit was organized for some AAPT representatives to meet with the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Though I didn’t go on the visit, I heard from colleagues that attended that it went really well.
On Sunday evening, a group of SPS Interns made a plan to attend the meeting for the Undergraduate Student Hangout and the Society of Physics Students Poster Session, but before those got underway, we enlisted as interns for Dr. Alberta Pauline Schrodenberg, solving puzzles to complete the AAPT LabEscape. LabEscape is an outreach project created by physics faculty at The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. They run an escape room based off of a physics lab, teaching the public about the basics of concepts like polarization, refraction, pressure, and more. It was a really unique experience, and so much fun. I’m definitely already thinking about ways to implement an escape room event for my SPS chapter at UMD.
The next day it was back to work, but our intern coordinator had some activities planned for us this week. On Monday we walked over to the steps of the Capitol Building and Cassie did a photoshoot with us so we would have some nice professional photos to use for LinkedIn or headshots. It’s really great having a mentor who does so much to support us and ensure we get the absolute most out of our internships.
Tuesday included a trip over to the office of Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson. We met her Chief of Staff briefly, and her assistant took us to visit the House Floor. When Congress is out of session, the Floor is open to House staff to bring guests straight onto the floor. You can sit where Congress Members sit while voting is in session, and visit the podium where the Vice President presides over Congress. Of course, photos are not allowed as all electronics are prohibited in the House Chamber, but the memory will stay with me.
I was out of the office on Wednesday so I could attend the final day of the AAPT conference. I attended some really great sessions, including one that one of our committee staff members presented at about the AAAS Fellowships, and one on the APS Step Up 4 Women program. I really enjoyed learning more about Step Up 4 Women. I got the opportunity to help out a bit while the program was still forming, and it’s such a great project to support the advancement of women in physics by reaching out to high school teachers to inspire and foster enthusiasm for physics in their students. That night I got to spend dinner with a group of members of The Access Network who were at the AAPT conference.
I’ve been working with Access for over two years now, and have met some of the most amazing people through the organization. I was so happy to get to spend the evening with them catching up and hearing about the great stuff going on at their universities.After dinner we got to attend the AAPT Physics Demo Show. I was excited to see Stanley Micklavzina from The University of Oregon was performing. I saw one of his shows for the first time while at Green River Community College and he was my Zone Councilor. He performed for us at our Zone Meeting, and I have never forgotten it. He did some awesome demos involving light and sound. My favorite was when he had a row of people hold hands to connect a circuit and cause music to play, then he led a physics sing-a-long. He created a song about physics teachers and demo shows to the tune of The Trogg's "Wild Thing".
Physics Teachers, I think I love you. But I wanna know for sure
It was a long but incredible day, and I was looking forward to more the next day.
I got the opportunity to attend the Physics Education Research Conference on Thursday, where many Access Network members were organizing and presenting. The poster session had some really cool topics like the biases created in student learning through urban or rural upbringing, feedback mechanisms for improving student communication, and Examining student tendencies to explore alternate possibilities. There was a small poster session for Access sites to share what has been going on with their sites and programs. Even working as a fellow with the organization for two years, I’m still always learning new things whenever we get together. The plenary talk given by Déana Scipio was great. Each plenary talk at the PERC related to the topic of “Wonderful Ideas.” What constitutes a wonderful idea? How do students react to feedback on ideas? It was really interesting and uplifting to hear the positive ideas the speakers shared.
I guess that leads me back to today, sitting in my office and contemplating my week. I’m so glad I got to experience AAPT and PERC and surround myself with so many people working diligently to make the field of physics more collaborative and inclusive. I feel like all summer I’ve gotten the chance to be surrounded by amazing people who really care about the future of physics, and I couldn’t be happier.
Sarah Monk