1. Physics Exam Format in 2024
VCAA will be releasing a sample exam paper in a few weeks, although some changes have already been announced.  Section B will now be worth 100 marks, Section A is unchanged at 20 marks for 20 multiple choice questions. Check here for details.
It is not known at this stage whether the number of Section B questions is less, although it is unlikely as VCAA has been concerned about some two-mark questions, where nearly all students score either 0 or 2 marks.
There are no changes to the information on pre-written notes.

There is also a change of font with the text changed to Arial, although equations and Greek letters will stay as Times New Roman.

2. Beginning Physics Teachers' In-Service. Thursday, 11th April 
The in-service will be at Kew High School. The program includes a hands-on session of practical activities, presentations by Colin Hopkins and Andrew Hansen, the chief assessor, and a panel of experienced teachers sharing their ideas on developing SAC tasks.  
Registration is open here.
Cost: $60 with discounts for Vicphysics subscribers.  Lunch is provided.
The in-service is of value to first-year-out physics teachers, those returning to physics teaching after some absence and teachers of other science disciplines who have been asked by their school to take Physics. 3. Building a Global Network of High School Physics Educators  An Update: Talks and Resources
Edition No 3 of this newsletter earlier this year featured an article about a Harvard University project to 'build a network to support and improve high school physics education'.  They offer on-line talks a few times a year by big names in Physics Education like Eric Mazur, Eugenia Etkina and Joe Cossette.  The talks are also posted on their Youtube Channel.  The article listed some several of the talks.

Their current series is Climate Change in the Physics Classroom.  The first talk by Prof Mark Windschitl was titled "Locating physics teaching within the landscape of climate change: How we can plan for our own learning and avoid being overwhelmed".  It is now available on the Youtube channel.

In particular, he discussed professional learning activities to develop our climate literacy and how this can help us be more purposeful in planning for student experiences that are coherent and meaningful to them. Dr. Windschitl shared resources for professional development activities, websites, and ideas for learning together.  He finished by discussing what the right “grain size” of climate change teaching (lessons, units, dedicated courses) can be for participants in different situations.

The next two talks in the series are:

• Powering Clean Power Generation in the Physics Classroom, 
• Beyond the Greenhouse Effect: Climate Change and Social Justice 

This link has the abstract of these talks, but more importantly a link to the resources of Prof Windschitl's talk.
Also worth checking is the Resources section at the top of the page of the link.  There are 24 categories including: assignment software, online resources, simulations, smart phone apps, video trackers, etc.  The spreadsheet of the Simulations Index lists over 700 entries, each with the topic, title, what to do, year level and URL. 4.  Short practical activities for home: Next Activity
Activity for this newsletter: You need a rubber ball, a table with a flat underside and a 30 cm length of wide adhesive strip, about 3 cms wide.  Place the strip on the floor under the edge of the table. Stand about 0.5 to 1 m away from the table and throw the ball on to the strip,  
What happens next? A) The flight path of the bouncy ball follows a zigzag line. It comes out on the other side of the table, B) The bouncy ball jumps from the tape under the table and then comes back out at the front, C) The bouncy ball jumps from the tape under the table, falls to the floor and stays there, D) The bouncy ball jumps from the adhesive strip under the table and out the back without touching the table.
Check this Youtube video for the short introduction. The answer will be in the next newsletter.

Answer to the activity in the last newsletter is: A: When stretching the rubber band, it becomes warm, then cools as it contracts.  Also check the entry, titled Physics of Advent, at the bottom of this webpage, on our website for information about the source of these activities. 5. Events for Students

Girls in Physics Breakfast for 2024
Bookings are open and flyers are available for confirmed events.

• Traralgon, 17th May, Speaker: Natalie Clements, Medical radiation physicist, Topic: Using physics to treat cancer.
• Central Melbourne, 9th May.  AIP Women in Physics Lecturer for 2024, Prof Susan Coppersmith, UNSW, Topic: What do Theoretical Physicists do?
• Wodonga, 30th May (TBC), Speaker Dr Renee Goreham, University of Newcastle, Topic: Nanobiotechnology: Building the Future of Medicine and Beyond
• Bendigo, (Term 3).  Speaker: Dr Nadia Zatsepin, La Trobe University, Topic: Making molecular movies with X-ray lasers.
• Geelong, 15th August.  Speakers:  Prof Bre-Anne Sainsbury, Prof Wendy Timms, Deakin University, Topics: a) The Gentle Art of Breaking Stuff, b) Locking Carbon in the Ground: How, When, Where?

The cost this year is $25 per student inc GST with the first teacher free.  A discount is available.
Please check the website for more details.  Bookings can now be made for the ones with confirmed dates.  The others will open for bookings as venue and speaker details are confirmed.
 

Live-Streaming of Breakfast Talk, 8:15am, 9th May
You and your students can view the talk by the Aust Inst of Physics Women in Physics Lecturer for 2024, Prof Susan Coppersmith, on the morning of Thursday, 9th May as she speaks at the Girls in Physics Breakfast in Central Melbourne.
They are many ways for you to use the talk from the simple to the grand. These include:

1. Record the presentation and show it to the students at another time.
2. Invite students to view the presentation live and so be able to contribute questions for the speaker.
3. Offer the students a light breakfast at the school before viewing the presentation.
4. Invite people who have a career in STEM or are studying STEM subjects at university to join the students for an informal light breakfast before viewing the presentation. Your school alumni are a good source.
5. Make the event more structured by including some careers-based activities or a small panel from among your guests.
6. Contact a nearby school and make it a combined event.

Check our website for advice and suggestions for the above options as well as to register for the Zoom link. Prof Coppersmith's topic is 'From Grains of Sand to Quantum Computers'.  The website also has further information on Prof Coppersmith and her talk.

The Girls in Physics Breakfasts Program has a limit on the number of students per school to maximise the number of schools able to attend. Live-streaming enables more students to be involved.  Last year Kew High School organised their own in-house breakfast with their alumni as the principal source of guests.  It is their planning and experience of that event that is the basis of the advice on the website.

6. Events for Teachers 

a) Out-of-Field PD for Science Teachers: Forces and Motion, Electricity: Both In-person
The Out-of-Field PD program continues in 2024.
The next one is on Forces and Motion, it is in person and at Wangaratta on 2nd and 9th May.  The cost is $220 and there is CRT coverage for Government schools.

There is also one on Electricity, done in person in the after-school format at John Monash Science School, on Thursdays, 16th May to 20th June from 4:30pm to 6:30pm.

Check here for details for both events.

Material is being developed for PD on Light and Sound, and Energy which are expected to be conducted in the 2nd half of the year.

b) Special Relativity: On line PD Term 2
Theo Hughes will be repeating of last year's online PD on Special Relativity in Term 2.  It will be on Thursdays, 9th May to 13th June, from 4:30pm to 6:30pm. 
The cost is $265 with discounts for Vicphysics subscribers
Check here for details.

c) PHYSCON 2024: Videos, Resources, Evaluation and Post Conference Registration
Videos of the keynote addresses and most of the workshops are available at the conference website to those who registered.
If you were not able to attend, you can still get access to the presentations by registering now.
The cost is $135 with discounts for Vicphysics subscribers. Please click here to go to the PHYSCON webpage and click on Register.  The presentations include Maria James, VCAA on Assessment Tasks and Andrew Hansen, the Chief Assessor on the 2023 Physics Exam.
The resources provided by the presenters were initially only available during their presentation.  To access them, the participants should open the platform, click on the session and scroll down to resources to access the link.

d) Inspiring Students to Think Like Physicists with Hands-On Data Collection and Real-World Modeling
A US webinar on Thursday, April 18, 2024 at 7:00 PM US Time. This corresponds to Friday morning Melbourne time.  However, if you register, you will be sent the video link after the event with access to all the resources presented.  You can register here.

Summary: In the first half of this workshop, we will highlight how your students can investigate physics in the world around them. Discover how you can use your students' surroundings to introduce the concept of "goals-less problems," helping your class learn—and think—like physicists. We will identify real-world learning opportunities that encourage your students to think about what they want to know and what piques their curiosity. Using sensors, we will demonstrate how students can investigate real-world phenomena while collecting data.
In the second half of the workshop, we will explore connections to physics outside the classroom. This includes the analysis and modeling of real-world situations and not-so-real events from popular media. Create physics models with simple data collection, video analysis, and numerical calculations. These types of real (and not-so-real) calculations can be used in physics classrooms and as inspiration for physics students.

Speakers: Fran Poodry, Director of Physics with Vernier Science Education and Rhett Allain, Southeastern Louisiana University, his website has links to his articles and Youtube videos.

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9.   Physics News from the Web
Items selected from the bulletin of the Institute of Physics (UK).
Each item below includes the introductory paragraphs and a web link to the rest of the article.
a) Explaining the origin of life with physics
Can you explain the origin of life on Earth using the principles of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics? It’s not a question that even physics students see in their more challenging assignments. But it is one that Liam Graham  - physicist turned economist – attempts to answer in his debut book Molecular Storms: the Physics of Stars, Cells and the Origin of Life.

Throughout Molecular Storms, Graham uses a light, informal tone with a measured injection of humour to keep readers on a direct path from the laws of thermodynamics to the inception of biological diversity. He begins by painting a picture of the motions of molecules in the “molecular storm”. The opening chapters acquaint the reader with the main tenets of statistical mechanics (such as microstates and Brownian motion) as well as, of course, thermodynamics.

b) A suspenseful story of life and death in the universe
A review of C Renee James' book 'Things that go bump in the Universe'.  'James is an engaging writer who employs all the careful plotting and pacing of a detective novelist. Once it gets into its groove, the book covers the explosive lives and deaths of stars, which, as James reminds us, are but a short-lived blip in the story of a universe that is unstoppably cooling and expanding'.

c) How a technique for recycling rare-earth permanent magnets could transform the green economy
Allan Watson, a materials scientist from the University of Birmingham has co-founded a company called HyProMag which has developed a technique for recycling rare-earth magnets, which are widely used in wind turbines, electric-vehicle (EV) motors and other parts of the “green economy”.

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