1. Revision Lecture: Sunday, 10th September. Online and in person at Swinburne University of Technology
The Revision lecture this year will be delivered on-line and in person. The presenters will be Colin Hopkins, Sandor Kazi and Paul Cuthbert.
The program will run from 10:00am until 2:50pm with two 50 min morning presentations and a 10 min break in between, followed by a 60 min lunch break, with two more 50 min sessions in the afternoon.
Swinburne University is not only providing lunch, but also offering 25 min Astro Tours and campus tours at lunch time. They will also have Course Advice booths in the lunch area.
Notes will be available in a digital format.
Cost: $25, payment by credit card only.
Venue: Level 2, AMDC Building, Swinburne University of Technology, Burwood Rd, Hawthorn.
Students can register for the lecture and the tours at the Students webpage on the vicphysics website.
Getting there: Glenferrie railway station, Six tram routes (16, 48, 70, 72, 75 and 109). Free car parking across Burwood Rd in the council car park.
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2. Course Planning Day for Units 3 and 4 in 2024, Friday, 10th November. Online and in person at Swinburne University of Technology.
Vicphysics is organising a Course Planning Day for Friday, 10th November, the day after the Physics exam and the day before the assessors' meeting. It will be held at Swinburne University of Technology and also online. The program is expected to include presentations and small group activities. Lunch will be provided for in-person participants.
Cost: $90 non-subscribers, $80 subscribers in person. $50 non-subscribers, $40 subscribers online.
Vicphysics is currently finalising the program. Registrations will open next week on the Vicphysics website.
3. Talk, Dinner and Catching Up: ChatGPT and Physics Teaching and learning - Friend or Foe? , 6pm, Weds, 30th August at the Auburn Hotel
The Vicphysics Teachers’ Network invites physics teachers and others interested in physics education to gather in an informal setting for a series of dinners with a guest speaker. The guest speakers will address diverse topics touching on curriculum, pedagogy and the discipline itself. Attendees will have the opportunity to engage in discussion and network with colleagues over dinner.
The next occasion will be Wednesday, 30th Aug ust at the Auburn Hotel at 85 Auburn Rd, Hawthorn starting at 6:00pm.
Topic: ChatGPT and Physics Teaching and learning - Friend of Foe?
Speaker: Prof Andrew Greentree from RMIT, Andy is a theoretical physicist, with a background in quantum optics and quantum information.
The cost is $45 ($40 for Vicphysics subscribers) and covers a main course and drinks.
For more details and to book click here. To download the flyer, click here. For some background, check this video and this article:
16 min video , How ChatGPT can help physicists in their daily work
4. Lab Techs Workshops, Weds 13th September, Camberwell Grammar School
The Workshops are on again this year, back in the last week of Term 3.
The program offers a range of workshops including:
- Learning new skills e.g. repairing a multimeter, using a CRO, using a Ruhmkorff coil,
- Soldering: An introduction to the Art with Harvey Edwards from Principles and Practice
- Electronic data method in the Physical Sciences with Megan Simkins from Ciderhouse
- Electronic data collection with Amanda Lovett from Modern Teaching Aids
- Physics Demonstrations for Open Days and Using Science Toys with Man Lam from Mount Alexander College (to be confirmed)
- Safe handling of ionising radiation and storage of radioactive sources with Dan O'Keeffe, Vicphysics
- Tour of lab and prep room facilities including animal house plus Laboratory management hints with Svetlana Marchouba, Camberwell Grammar School.
Cost: $75, lunch is included.
For more details and to book, click here.
5. Vicphysics AGM and how to become a member.
Membership of the Vicphysics Teachers' Network is open to any person interested in physics education. There is no joining fee or membership fee. Members are able to contribute to the decision making of the group, receive meeting agendas, nominate for the Committee and vote at the Annual General Meeting.
To become a member, you can download and complete the membership application form under 'About Us' at the top of the website and email it to the Secretary.
Membership is confirmed once the applicant attends a meeting, either in person or on Zoom. Please note that being a subscriber to the resources on the Vicphysics website or being a recipient of this newsletter are not the same as being a member of Vicphysics.
The next Vicphysics meeting will be Wednesday,19th July and will be on Zoom. The AGM will be Weds, 26th July at Melbourne Girls' College, 55 Yarra Boulevard, Richmond, followed by dinner afterwards covered by Vicphysics. Online access to the AGM will be available.
6. Careers in STEMM. The Royal Society of Victoria's Science Victoria magazine
The current edition of the RSV's Science Victoria has the theme of Careers in STEMM. The 60 page booklet has many articles including several profiles of people working science in different ways. It also features two articles on Vicphysics activities, on our Girls in Physics Breakfasts Program and our careers website Where to with Physics?
The edition can be accessed here.
7. Events for Students
Girls in Physics Breakfasts in 2023
Below are the dates and venues for the Term 3 Breakfasts with the speakers and their topics.
- 21st July, Monash University. Speaker: Dr Karen Livesey, University of Newcastle. The AIP Women in Physics Lecturer for 2023. Topic: Nanomagnets: New materials to address biomedical and technological problems
- 2nd August, Geelong. Speaker: A/Prof Elizabeth Hinde, Melbourne University, Topic: Glow in the dark – Using fluorescence to observe DNA in a living cell
- 11th August, Wodonga. Speaker: Emma Dyce, Medical radiation physicist, Topic: Treating skin cancer with radiotherapy
- 16th August, Traralgon. Speaker: Prof Rachel Webster, Melbourne University, Topic: Geothermal: vast energy reserves beneath our feet
- 25th August, Ballarat. Speaker: Dr Taissa Danilovich, Monash University, Topic: Molecules in Space
- 1st September, Bendigo. Speaker: Dr Amanda Karakas, Monash University Topic: Stars as chemical element factories
The cost this year is $20 per student, the first teacher attends for free. There is a discount to $5 for low ICSEA schools, you need to contact Vicphysics to request the discount.
For more details and to book go to the Vicphysics website.
International Lepton Photon Conference. Public Lecture, Convention Centre, 6pm, 20th July.
The Conference runs from 17th to 21st July. The public lecture on Thursday, 20th July will feature Suzie Sheehy (University of Melbourne and Oxford University) and Alan Duffy (Swinburne University of Technology) in a talk titled 'How to Discover a Universe'.
It will be held in the Clarendon Auditorium at MCEC from 6pm until 7pm.
Cost: $15. Click here to book.
Bios: Dr Sheehy is a physicist, science communicator and academic who divides her time between her research groups at the University of Oxford and University of Melbourne. Her research addresses both curiosity-driven and applied areas and is currently focused on developing new particle accelerators for applications in medicine. An award-winning public speaker, presenter and science communicator, Suzie is dedicated to sharing science beyond the academic community. Her 2018 TED talk has been viewed over 1.8M times and she has been an expert TV presenter for a number of Discovery Channel shows including four seasons of Impossible Engineering. In her talks and shows, Sheehy loves to bring real-life demonstrations and experiments, and she has shared these with hundreds of thousands of audience members. 'The Matter of Everything' is her first book.
Professor Alan Duffy. Professor Alan Duffy is the Pro-Vice Chancellor of Flagship Initiatives at Swinburne University of Technology, bringing together diverse research teams with industry and government stakeholders to undertake transformative programmes in Flagship sectors of hydrogen, renewable technologies, AI, space and aerospace, MedTech and health innovation. He was the inaugural Director of the Space Technology and Industry Institute at Swinburne, finding ways to use space and AI to help companies and communities on Earth. His research background in computational astrophysics saw Alan model universes on supercomputers to understand how galaxies like our Milky Way form within vast clouds of dark matter. He is trying to find this dark matter as a Chief Investigator in the $35M ARC CoE for Dark Matter Particle Physics and SABRE, the world’s first dark matter detector in the Southern Hemisphere, at the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory at the bottom of an active gold mine in Victoria.
Synchrotron Excursions: Dates and Discounts
ANSTO has recently provided equity-based funding to increase accessibility for disadvantaged students to visit the ANSTO Australian Synchrotron. Please contact the PrimeSCI! Office to confirm your school's eligibility for a 30% discount on excursion fees.
VCE Physics Lab Sessions (Unit 4 Areas of Study 1 and 2, Unit 2, Options 16 and 18)
- Time: 9:30am - 2:00pm or as arranged by the school
- Cost: Less than 13 students: $400 plus GST. More than 13: $30 per student plus GST. Max of 24 students. Classes can be combined.
- Available dates. Unit 4: 24/7 to 15/9 and 2/20 to 13/10. Unit 2: 10/7 to 20/7 and 16/10 to 3/11
Years 9 & 10 Light It Up Sessions
(This session covers Curriculum areas including concepts in the physics of interaction of light and energy, nuclear physics, radioactivity and other key scientific concepts and introduces students to using specialised equipment and immersive experiments. Lab sessions include a tour of the Australian Synchrotron facility)
- Duration: 2.5 hours AM or PM
- Cost: Less than 13 students: $275 plus GST. More than 13: $20 per student plus GST. Max of 28 students
- Available dates for remainder of 2023: (6/11 to 15/12)
Swinburne Innovation Challenge
Swinburne University of Technology’s Innovation Challenge gives high ability students in years 10 to 12 an opportunity to extend their learning in Applied Innovation through an eight-week challenge and on-campus experience.
To start the program, students will form multidisciplinary teams (STEM, sociology, media, etc) of 4-6 and select a challenge to address related to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.(Examples not provided)
After forming their teams and selecting the challenge focus, students will attend a half-day on-campus experience at Swinburne’s Hawthorn Campus (13th Sept).
After the on-campus experience, students will return to school and work in their teams to refine their idea and create a final pitch. Final pitches are submitted in the form of a 1-2 min video and a panel of Swinburne experts will evaluate them and award prizes in a range of categories. Swinburne support is available.
Cost: There are no details, but it seems to be free to Gov't school teams. The program is repeated later in the year.
For more information and to register click here. This flyer has more details.
8. Events for Teachers
a) Out-of-Field Electricity and Forces and Motion Workshops.
Electricity Workshop: Kew.
The Kew event at Kew High School is next term. It will be six two-hour sessions on Thursdays from 27th July to 31st August, starting at 4:30pm.
The intensive module steps you through the key concepts and skills to successfully teach the relevant Year 7 - 10 curriculum content.
Why your colleagues should participate:
- Deepen their conceptual understanding of key concepts in electric circuits
- Engage in practical activities that they can directly deploy in your classroom
- Unpack typical student misconceptions and learn best practice pedagogy for combating them
- Improve their ability to differentiate curriculum and assessment student achievement
- Access materials to support your classroom practice prepared by experienced teachers and science education academics associated with the Vicphysics Teachers' Network
- Become part of a network like-minded teachers who are striving to improve their practice
The Force and Motion Workshop: John Monash Science School
This event is also next term. It will be six two-hour sessions on Mondays from 24th July to 27th August, starting at 4:30pm.
Cost $240 per participant for each workshop. A discount is available for teachers from low ICSEA schools.
For more details and to book click here.
9. Seeking a Physics teacher? Seeking a new position?
The Vicphysics Teachers' Network has a Job Ads page to assist schools in finding a physics teacher.
There are two (2) schools seeking a physics teacher. The Vicphysics webpage above has a link to the Government schools jobs website. The following Gov't Schools are seeking a physics teacher.
- Somerville Secondary College (closes 15th July)
- Kambrya College (closes 9th July)
The webpage is updated every weekend. The webpage also has a link on how schools can register a position and lodge a payment for this service.
i) Vicphysics Forum: Tips and Questions for the Physics Teaching Community
The Vicphysics Teachers’ Network has set up an online Forum for teachers to raise issues, seek ideas, offer suggestions, etc. The link is on the top line of our website’s home page: https://www.vicphysics.org/ We hope it will be an opportunity for mutual professional development.
The forum is open to all teachers. If you are a subscriber you can login in the usual way. If you are not a subscriber you can register to just use the forum at ‘My Account’. Given the purposes of this Forum, we ask that you use your real name when generating a topic or a lodging a post.
We hope this Forum will become a valuable medium for the exchange of ideas as we begin planning for the new study design.
ii) Subscriptions: A Vicphysics subscription gives you access to the Teachers section of the website. The subscription will last for a year from the day payment is received. Both individual and school subscriptions are available. Check the homepage for subscription link.
iii) Tutor Listing Service: The website has a Tutor Listing Service. There are now six tutors listed. If you tutor and wish to add your name to the list, please check the website.
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11. 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) Albert Einstein and the origins of Modern Cosmology
In 1917 Einstein wrote a paper titled 'Cosmological considerations in the general theory of relativity'.
The above article describes in an accessible way, his inclusion of an extra term, a cosmological constant, to give the universe the geometry of a three-dimensional sphere as well as his correspondence with de Sitter and Lemaitre.
Hubble's discovery then changed matters as it suggested the cosmological constant was not needed. However 'Today the term cosmological constant has made a dramatic return to the field equations due to the observation of an acceleration in the expansion of the cosmos'. An effective overview.
b) A political essay by Albert Einstein: Why Socialism?
In May 1949 Albert Einstein wrote an article, Why Socialism?, which was published in the first edition of a magazine called the Monthly Review.
c) Here’s why Tesla’s Master Plan 3 makes a lot of sense for a sustainable future
James MacKenzie in Physics World writes 'Using data from the International Energy Agency, the plan reminds us that the world currently uses about 165 petawatt-hours of energy per year (PWh/yr), of which 80% is from fossil fuels. Losses and inefficiencies, however, mean that barely 36% of the total energy is actually used for the purpose intended (59 PWh/yr).
But because electrically-driven power sources are far more efficient than combustion engines, the “electric economy” only needs 82 PWh/yr to do the same work. A Tesla Model 3, for example, is 3.9 times more energy efficient than a petrol-powered Toyota Corolla, while a heat pump is 3–4 times better than a gas boiler. '
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