1. Review of the Design of the Physics Exam: A Survey. 
As part of the introduction of the revised Physics Study Design, VCAA is undertaking a review of the design of the Physics exam paper.  As part of the review, VCAA is seeking the views of physics teachers through an online survey.  The closing date is Monday 22nd August. The link will also be available to teachers on the VCAA Bulletin and will also be included in the Notice to Schools.
There are 11 questions, 5 of which are multiple choice. There is scope for additional comment.

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2. Online Physics Revision Lecture, Sunday, 11th September
The lecture will be presented by Sandor Kazi of Melbourne Girls' College and Paul Cuthbert of University High School.  The format will be the same as last year's lecture. The lecture will be presented as a Zoom webinar for which the students will need to book.  The cost stays at $25 per student.  Teachers making a group booking will need to provide the students' name and email addresses. Each student will be sent the Zoom link before the lecture. Teachers can also include themselves in the booking.  For more details and to book when the cost is finalised is here.

The structure of the program is that Sandor and Paul will each take it in turn to present a 45 min talk on an Area of Study with a 15 minute gap in between.  The program starts at 9:00am and runs until 1:45pm.

There will be course summaries available.  During the webinar there will be a panel behind the scenes answering the students' questions in the chat room.  The chat room comments will also be saved and forwarded to all participants.

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3. STEM Resources from STELR
STELR is an initiative of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering, 
They produce STEM ready kits on Renewable Energy, Sustainable Housing, Electricity and Energy, Wind Energy and Solar Cars.  They also have modules with lessons and investigations across a range of STEM areas.   
Another useful resource is the numerous career profiles of scientists and engineers in two areas STEM at Work and Women in STEM.   They also run free weekly webinars for high school students. Check here for details on future programs, previous webinars can also be accessed.
You can also register for their newsletter here.

4. New Scientist Live: Online Festival, 8th, 9th October
The New Scientist magazine is organising a Festival of Ideas and Discoveries on the weekend of 8th and 9th October. It is an Online event and also to an audience in London.. There are over 50 speakers across four stages: Universe, Our Planet, The Future and Mind and Body, .The speakers are high profile speakers from across the globe.  Each stage has about five presentations on each day, each running for 50 mins.  Booking online gives you access to all presentations for 12 months.  Online tickets can be purchased now for £20, rising to £27 post early bird.
For details of speakers, the program and to book click here.

5. Small Modular Reactors: Some Resources
There are a few recent articles about Small Modular Reactors (SMR) that give an overview of the topic.  They include:

• ANSTO: Small modular reactors can be built with Generation IV reactor designs
• PhysicsWorld: Why smaller is better when it comes to nuclear power
• ScienceDirect: Emerging small modular nuclear power reactors: A Critical Review
• Wikipedia
• Phys.Org: Assessing the viability of small modular nuclear reactors
• YouTube: Small Modular Reactors Explained - Nuclear Power's Future?
• Green Tech Media: So, What Exactly Are Small Modular Nuclear Reactors?

6.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 is seven (7) schools seeking a physics teacher:

• Brighton Secondary College (Closes 25th July)
• Viewbank College (Closes 26th July)
• Euroa Secondary College (Closes 31st July)
• South Oakleigh Secondary College (31st July)
• Parkdale Secondary College (Closes 3rd Aug)
• East Doncaster Secondary College (Closes 4th Aug)
• Westbourne Grammar School (closes 5th Aug)  The school has placed an ad on the Vicphysics website.  For details of this position, which starts in 2023, click the link above.

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. 8. Events for Students
a) Public Lecture: Impacts! Rocks from space colliding with Planets, 6:30pm, 27th July, Storey Hall, RMIT
The AIP Women in Physics Lecturer for 2022, A/Prof Katarina Miljkovic, will be giving a public lecture at 6:30pm on 27th July at Storey Hall, RMIT.
If you wish to attend you can register on Eventbrite here or you can view the livestream on Microsoft Teams by clicking here .

b)  Girls in Physics Breakfasts in 2022

There is one event open for bookings, others may follow later this term.  They are:

• Friday, 19th August at Mildura.  The speaker is Dr Judy Hart and her topic is 'Developing new materials for Renewable Energy'

Click here for more details of the event, such as promotional flyers, speakers' bios and abstracts of their talks.  There are also links for make a booking.

Cost: $15 per student if booking with a credit card through Trybooking and $25 if using bank transfer with an invoice .  There is a discount for low ICSEA schools.

c) Physics Gymnasium: Lectures for students - University of Melbourne
Formally known as the VCE lectures, while they do explore the current VCE curriculum, these lectures are open to students of all ages with a keen interest in Physics, as well as teachers and parents.

• Thursday, 4th August. 5:30pm. Gravity, Dr David Simpson
• Thursday, 18th August, 5:30pm. The photon: a wave or a particle? or both? Prof Harry Quiney
• Thursday, 1st September, 5:30pm.  The Future of Optics with Prof Ann Roberts

Check here for more details and to book. Recordings of previous lectures are now available.
These are Covid-safe events. The lectures will be delivered to a live audience in the School of Physics. The lectures will also be live streamed. The Zoom link will be sent two days before the lecture.

d) Victorian Young Physicists' Tournament for students in Year 10 and 11

VYPT is back this year with a number of changes. For those not familiar with VYPT.  It is a competition for students in Years 10 and 11. During Terms 2 and 3, in teams of 3, the students experimentally investigate a common set of three topics, then on Saturday, 10th September in a series of one-on-one 30 minute contests with other teams, they describe their method, explain their findings, and question and challenge the presentations of others.

The closing date for registrations in 29th July.

For further details, there are four relevant webpages on the Vicphysics website:

• For general information,
• For teachers to register teams, along with advice on planning, including a promotional flyer and a link to the video of Physics Teachers' Conference workshop with a discussion among a panel of teachers who have participated before.
• For students, with guide questions, hints and links to useful resources.
• For University students, interested in being judges and mentors.

e)  Other Vicphysics Competitions

• Poster Competition for Unit 2 Practical Investigation   The Poster Competition is designed to award quality student work and to provide exemplars of quality investigations. Check this webpage.
• Physics Photo Contest For details click here
• Physics Video Contest For details click here.

f) Free AstroTours for Year 10 – 12 students

Swinburne's Hawthorn campus is offering free Astro Tours to school groups of students in Years 10 - 12.  The tours are hosted by a professional astronomer, students learn about astronomy using innovative virtual reality technologies developed by Swinburne's Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing.

Students will have the opportunity to ask questions, and discover the universe through movies, animations and simulations — all produced by the in-house team of astronomers, visualisation researchers, animators, artists and programmers.   Teachers are also invited to customise the AstroTour to suit the interests of their students. 

The session runs for 50 minutes and the venue can take 55 students. Click here for more details and to book.

g) New Scientist Festival of Ideas and Discoveries.  Weekend 8th and 9th October.  Online and On Demand
New Scientist is organising an event with over 50 speakers across four stages over two days.  The event can be viewed live (held during the day UK time) or viewed on demand for 12 months afterwards.
The four stages are: Universe, Mind and Body, Our Planet and Future, each with five 40 min presentations each day.
The Super Early Bird online price of 20 pounds gives you on demand to all talks for 12 months.

For more details of the speakers and to book click here.

h) Prof Brian Cox. Horizons: A 21st Century Space Odyssey, 7:30pm, 15th October
Venue: Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre
Cost: Full time students $56
To Book: click here

9. Events for Teachers
a) July Lectures in Physics: Fridays in July at the University of Melbourne

The theme of this year's series of lectures is 'Quantum Worlds: from the cosmos to future computing'. The remaining lecture is:

• Friday, 29th July at 6:30pm: Thermonuclear quantum mechanics: the elusive promise of fusion with Prof David Jamieson.  This lecture is dedicated to the memory of Professor Tony Klein.  Click here to book and for details of the abstract, the speaker's bio and the venue.

Drinks and refreshments are provided before the lecture.

b)  Supporting out-of-field teachers of Physical Science
Vicphysics is preparing intensive PD for out-of-field year 7 - 10 science teachers. The first module will cover the teaching of forces and motion and will run after school for two hours per week from Thursday, 21st July to Thursday, 25th August.  The times will be 4:30pm to 6:30pm.  The venue is Kew High School.

c)  Lab Techs' Workshops on Years 7 - 10 Physics, 1st Dec, Camberwell Grammar School
The program of workshops for Lab Techs returns.  It will be on Thursday, 1st December and held again at Camberwell Grammar School.  The program includes:

• Learning new skills
• Setting up demonstrations
• Quick Tests on Equipment to see it is working or not plus a few hints on fixing stuff with Harvey Edwards from Principles and Practice
• Electronic data methods with Doug Bail from Ciderhouse, and
• Laboratory management hints

The cost is $70 and includes lunch.
For more information and to book click here.

d) EduTECH Conference and Expo, 10th - 11th August, Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre.
The event has over 300 speakers across 12 different conferences including: i) School leaders, ii) Teachers, iii) Digital Technologies, iv) ICT, v) Vocational Training as well as Apple, Microsoft and Google conferences.  There is also a large number of exhibitors.  Passes cost $300, discounts are available.  For details of the various conferences and speakers, please click here.

e) International Conference for Physics Education (ICPE 2022) 5th - 9th December
This year's conference will be an online conference based in Australia, Singapore and Indonesia, which mean it will be held in our time zone. 

It is an event for physics teachers both secondary and tertiary, teacher educators and teaching researchers.  As an online conference, the registration fee is quite low, $60 and $50 early bird.  Currently the program features many speakers including Dr Derek Muller with details of workshops to come.  

The conference proceedings will be available prior to the event so that you can decide which lectures and workshops to attend that fit around your working day.  Local academics are on the planning committee so there will be sessions relevant to Australian Physics Curricula.

For more details and to register, click here.

10.   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) Eunice Foote: A Once Forgotten Climate Science Pioneer
Perhaps because she was a woman, or perhaps because she was American, Eunice Foote did not receive credit for her 1856 discovery of the heat-absorbing properties of carbon dioxide and water vapor. This podcast tells the story of the once forgotten climate scientist, activist, and inventor, Eunice Foote. Though little is known about her or her perspective, her life and scientific contributions contextualize not only a history of climate change science but of the experience of women in science. This podcast starts our journey through the history of our understanding of the greenhouse effect and global warming.

b)  Thermodynamics of the climate system
To understand Earth’s climate, think of it as a giant, planetary-scale heat engine that drives the circulation of the oceans and atmosphere.
The climate system comprises the fluid envelopes of Earth: the atmosphere, oceans, and cryosphere. Those constituents, along with the evolving surface properties of the solid lithosphere, are responsible for reflecting some and absorbing most radiation received from the Sun. The climate system is close to an energy balance at all times. The total energy doesn’t significantly fluctuate in time because terrestrial radiation is emitted to space at approximately the same rate at which solar energy is absorbed.