1.  PD on SACs in June Update
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:  Both days now on-line
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. Explaining: application of physics concepts to explain a model, theory, device, design or innovation.
2. Analysing: analysis and evaluation of primary and/or secondary data, including data plotting, identified assumptions or data limitations, and conclusions.
3. Applying: problem-solving, applying physics concepts and skills to real-world contexts.
4. Comparing: 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,
• to learn from the experiences of others for developing tasks for the other two formats yet to be used and
• to use comments from the Audit process from VCAA to refine your SAC tasks.

Lessons from the Audit process.
VCAA has reported that many of the audited schools were asked to submit further evidence.  This was for a variety of reasons, such as a task was yet to be written, insufficient detail or some task requirements were not met.  VCAA has provided some commentary on each of the four formats for the assessment tasks based on the audit experience. 
 
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.  Seeking your Audit experiences
About 25% of schools were audited this year, because it is the first year of the revised study design for Units 3 and 4.  Vicphysics would like to hear about your experience of the process.

Here is a short google form where you can make comments anonymously.  We are interested to hear:

• whether the audit process was manageable for you, and
• how useful was the feedback from VCAA's audit panel of each of your assessment tasks,

3. Events for Students

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

• Bendigo, 1st August.  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.

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4. Events for Teachers 

Out-of-Field PD for Science Teachers: Forces and Motion (Leongatha) in-person
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 this event.
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.

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7.   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) The fusion industry must rise to its tritium challenge
Nuclear fusion reactors will not only need to fuse the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium (D-T) to produce power but also be fuel self-sufficient. Obtaining enough deuterium, which occurs naturally, is not a problem, but tritium only exists in trace amounts with limited stocks available as a by-product from fission reactors. The 14 MeV neutrons produced in the D-T reaction must therefore not only produce useful heat but also interact with lithium “blankets” to produce tritium.

b) Ancient lull in Earth’s magnetic field may have allowed large animals to evolve
The list of conditions required for complex life to emerge on Earth is contentious, poorly understood, and one item longer than it used to be. According to an international team of geoscientists, an unusual lull in the Earth’s magnetic field nearly 600 million years ago may have triggered a rise in the planet’s oxygen levels, thereby allowing large, complex animals to evolve and thrive for the first time. Though evidence for the link is circumstantial, the team says that new measurements of magnetization in 591-million-year-old rocks suggest an important connection between processes occurring deep within the Earth and the appearance of life on its surface.

c) Quantum-themed escape room opens at German science museum
Billed as “Germany’s first quantum physics escape room,” the Kitty Q Escape Room has been unveiled by the Dresden-Würzburg Cluster of Excellence for Complexity and Topology in Quantum Matter (ct.qmat).
The installation has four separate rooms and 17 puzzles that offer visitors a multisensory experience that explores the quirky world of quantum mechanics. The goal for the participant is to discover the fate of Kitty Q (is she dead or alive?), an imaginary being that embodies the spirit of Schödinger’s cat.

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