1. Planning future PD: PHYSCON 2024 and more Out of Field events
Vicphysics will be holding a short Zoom session on these two aspects this Thursday, 8th June, starting at 5:00pm.  The first hour will be on PHYSCON 2024 and the second half on Out of Field events.  If you would like to join either or both conversations, please email Vicphysics.to receive the Zoom link for the meeting.

5:00pm - 6:00pm 2024 Physics Teachers' Conference planning.  This will focus on i) possible keynote speakers, ii) any small group discussion and its purpose and format, iii) structure of the day and integration of an online component, etc.

6:00pm - 7:00pm June 8 2023 Supporting Out of Field Intensive Professional Development in Physics and Physical Sciences
At this meeting the Vicphysics President, Barbara McKinnon, will speak about the work that Vicphysics has done so far.  The successful Strategic Partnership Program (SPP) grant from DET has enabled Vicphysics to develop content and to present workshops mostly for Year 7 - 10 science teachers who were "out of field" in Physics.

The workshops consist of 12 hours of intensive professional development, designed specifically to address conceptual understanding.  The workshops developed and presented so far include one on Forces and Motion and one on Electricity as well as a workshop for VCE teachers on Special Relativity.  They have all been very well received by the attendees.  Check Item 6 below for details of current workshops.

Barbara would like to discuss options for increasing the scope of the program and building long term sustainability.  If you would like to know more about the project and if you might possibly be interested in contributing to content and/or presenting, please reply to the above email link.

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2. Medical Physics website for students
The American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) just launched a public education website.  They describe it as  'Medical physics is a field that uses concepts in physics to address questions in medicine. Medical physicists work in research, education, and clinical capacities in medical imaging, radiation therapy, and health physics. Physics students who want to learn how an MRI scanner works, read about how radiation affects cells, or just want to learn about a career in applied physics will enjoy this website, which includes an active "Ask the Expert" platform.'

3. Communicating the Science of Climate Change
This article in Physics Today has some useful advice on explaining science to the general public. 
Scientists prefer to begin with background information, move to supporting details, and finally come to their results and conclusions. For communicating with the public, however, they must invert that pyramid and begin with the bottom line, see figure. 
Also many words that seem perfectly normal to scientists are incomprehensible jargon to the wider world. And there are usually simpler substitutes, Rather than “anthropogenic,” scientists can say “human-caused.” 
They include a Table of Terms that have different meanings for scientists and the general public and they suggest a better choice.  Some examples from the long list are:
Scientific term        Public meaning             Better choice
theory                       hunch, speculation          scientific understanding 
uncertainty               ignorance                        range
anomaly                   abnormal occurrence      change from long-term average  4.  Swinburne University: Free Astrotours for Years 10, 11 and 12 classes
AstroTours educate audiences about astronomy using innovative virtual reality technologies developed by Swinburne University 
These sessions include movies, animations and simulations — all produced by their in-house team of astronomers, visualisation researchers, animators, artists and programmers.
Each AstroTour is hosted by a professional astronomer who can adapt the content to the requirements and learning outcomes of the audience. 
AstroTours for secondary school groups focus primarily on stars, galaxies and cosmology. Your AstroTour guide will discuss the life and death of stars through the 3D movies Our Sun and After Stars.  You are also invited to customise the AstroTour to suit the interests of your students. Each student will have access to a pair of special 3D glasses.
55 seats are available.  The session runs for 50 minutes. For Years 7 - 9, the cost is $9.90 per head, but it is free for Years 10 - 12 classes.
Bookings: check the link above for details. 5. Events for Students

Girls in Physics Breakfasts in 2023
Details and flyers are now available for all breakfasts.
The Melbourne and Mildura events were fully booked and successful occasions.  Below are the dates and venues for the remaining 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.
  6. Events for Teachers 

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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) John Herschel’s reform of science 
The son of the world’s most famous astronomer, William Herschel, John helped liberate science from the realm of aristocratic privilege. The practice of mathematics in Cambridge and science in London remained a conservative, hierarchical endeavor, the Royal Society enshrined science as a privileged, gentlemanly pursuit. 
With the onset of the industrial revolution, a growing middle class and new technologies created a new audience with the access, means, and leisure to pursue science. As the drive for political reform gained momentum in the 1820s, there was a parallel push to make science more egalitarian. Herschel was at the centre of that effort, which helped transform natural philosophy into modern science and the natural philosopher into the modern scientist.

b) Great gaffe in the sky: the erroneous physics behind The Dark Side of the Moon
Tom Tierney turns the famous album cover into a classroom physics exercise, and uncovers some inconsistencies.

c)  Illustrations of Ben Franklin’s kite experiment are wrong
Some of the most iconic images of the American polymath Benjamin Franklin show him doing a very silly thing — flying a kite in a thunderstorm. This is a reference to a famous experiment that Franklin is believed to have done in 1752, confirming that lightning was an electrical phenomenon similar to that observed in primitive batteries of the time.
However, according to the Brazilian historian Breno Arsioli Moura, most illustrations of the experiment misrepresent what Franklin is believed to have done.
 

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