1.  PD on SACs in June
Dates:      After school program over two days - Weds, 5^th June, Weds 12^th June
Times:     5:00pm to 6:30pm, 2 x 45 min sessions, each day
Format:  Weds 5^th June: Choice of on-line or in person at Kew High School
                 Weds 12^th June: On-line only
Cost:        None
Purpose: The revised Study Design for 2023 – 2027 has a significant change in how the assessment tasks are designed.  There are only four formats and each must be selected once across Units 3 and 4 for the four Areas of Study.  The Unit 4 Practical Investigation has its own format.
 
You choose the format to assess each Outcome Statement.  The formats are listed here.

1. application of physics concepts to explain a model, theory, device, design or innovation.
2. analysis and evaluation of primary and/or secondary data, including data plotting, identified assumptions or data limitations, and conclusions.
3. problem-solving, applying physics concepts and skills to real-world contexts.
4. comparison and evaluation of two solutions to a problem, two explanations of a physics phenomenon or concept, or two methods and/or findings from practical activities.

 By June, you are likely to have completed two assessment tasks with two of these formats, with two more tasks later in the year with the other two formats.
 
The PD will enable you:

• to share your experiences of using two of the formats for assessment tasks so far this year and
• to learn from the experiences of others for developing tasks for the other two formats yet to be used.

 Registration: When you register you will be asked to complete a table like the one below on the formats of the assessment tasks that you have completed so far:

Assessment Tasks done so far
Areas of Study in Unit 3	Format: A, B, C, D or Yet to do
Motion in 2D	?
Fields	?
Electricity Generation	?

2. Demos of exponential decay
UK Physics Teachers have a forum 'Physics Teachers News and Comment' (PTNC) to which teachers regularly share ideas. VicPhys News 1/T2/24 has more details about PTNC.
A request for demonstrations of exponential decays (or close to) produced the following suggestions:

• 'fidget spinners': clamp the central axis, spin it and use a light gate shining through the holes in the spinner as it decelerates.
• Water emptying from large cylinder or burette. Water outlet at base. Round polystyrene float on water. Distance sensor/datalogger (ultrasound) pointing at float.
• Inflated football on digital balance. Insert needle valve into ball, remove the valve part, just the nozzle. Start clock and record mass vs time as ball deflates.
• Pour a non-alcohol beer really poorly into a measuring cylinder. Measuring the height of the head at given times gives excellent exponential decay curves and you can talk about the half life of beer.
• Microwave popcorn. Buy a multipack and put them in the microwave until they start popping, then for an extra 30, 60, 90, 120, 150 seconds. Students count ratio of popped to un-popped, plotting a graph of % unpopped vs time.  Do it in a food safe environment and students can eat the results! 

3. Using AI when Teaching Physics
Another request for advice on PTNC (See item 2 above) about AI in physics received the following replies:

• Generating really lovely cover images for new topics... a summary of Quantum Physics in the style of Rembrandt?  perfect.  Isaac Newton battling a velociraptor?  Just the image I needed.  Frivolous but actually very pretty and quite a fun start to a topic.
• Students to try out as a revision tool:  "Copilot, please generate 5 multiple choice questions for me to test my understanding of XXX, don't give me the answers just yet".
• To help students explore topics- "Please write a story in the style of a fantasy novel to illustrate the ideas of XX".
• A teacher's documentation of how they are using AI to generate questions and answers, creative resources and plan lessons (20 pages of the outcomes, but most pages have short entries)
• Use Perplexity AI which gives sources to the student questions such as 'What questions should I ask myself when ..... '.  Was really nice for cutting the student 'research' time down, and very effective (and the tool is free).
• I included a complicated paper into a task recently and then suggested to students they might have a way to simplify it. Others were already pasting into Chat GPT. However, after a few minutes to make sure everyone had figured it out, I stopped the class and asked people to give their prompts. We then generated a 'best prompt' that extracted a simplified summary of the paper with the key points. The students found this really useful both in terms of learning about the AI tool, but also understanding they had another way of accessing difficult material.
• Some teachers are using Gemini, part of Google Apps.
• This interview with Mustafa Suleyman, the co-founder of Deep Mind and CEO of Microsoft AI, with the editor of The Economist on Intelligence Squared is an insightful and eloquent description of benefits and risks of future development of AI and the need to ensure public oversight of that development.
• This article on 'ChatGPT in physics education: A pilot study on easy-to-implement activities' looks promising.

4. 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.
• Wodonga, 30th May, 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 'What do Theoretical Physicists Do?.  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.

5. Events for Teachers 

a) Out-of-Field PD for Science Teachers: Forces and Motion, Electricity All in-person
There next one is 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.

Then Forces and Motion will be at Leongatha on 12th and 19th June. The cost is $220 and there is CRT coverage for Government schools.

Check here for details for these 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.

 

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8.   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) Milky Way’s supermassive black hole has a surprising magnetic personality
Supermassive black holes are believed to be surrounded by plasma that is swirling into the gravitational abyss. This creates a powerful magnetic field, which can then interact with the infalling material. This accelerating material emits copious amounts of radiation including radio waves that are polarized by the local magnetic field.
b) A vision of the quantum landscape
From building hybrid architectures to tackling complex fundamental questions, quantum physicist Mauro Paternostro outlines the vast potential on offer from the quantum technology landscape.
c)  Graphene at 20: why the ‘wonder material’ is finally coming good
Graphene and hype have gone hand in hand ever since Geim and Novoselov originally created the material at the University of Manchester using the famous “Scotch tape method” – a simple and cheap exfoliation process that involved using sticky tape to pull carbon layers from the top of a graphite block. Since then, other, more sophisticated and more expensive methods have been developed to make larger and/or more uniform graphene materials for different applications.
As such a great conductor and being 200 times stronger than steel, it’s obvious why there was so much excitement about graphene. But for anyone familiar with the “Gartner hype cycle”, it’s no surprise that graphene’s early promise was soon followed by a “trough of disillusionment” as people lost interest and enthusiasm. However, as the Gartner cycle so wonderfully predicts of any new tech, we’re now reaching the “plateau of productivity”, where real applications and products are starting to emerge.

 

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