*|MC:SUBJECT|*

1. Revision Lecture follow up: Resources are available
At last Sunday's revision lecture by Colin Hopkins, there were about 200 in the live audience and 100 on-line.
Colin provided extensive revision material to a google drive to which participants were given access.
The google drive now has Colin's powerpoint along with an audio of his presentation. There is also a 6 page file of the Q&A from the online participants from this and the previous two revision lectures.
Colin's revision material includes 20 files on different sections of the course. Each file (typically 15 pages) has

the relevant dot points,
list of related past-paper questions, each categorised by type, concept being tested, number of marks and percentage who got the question correct.
The actual questions with solutions.

There have been requests from teachers and other students to access the material.
The price is unchanged at $25, payable by credit card only.
Upon confirmation of payment the email address will be added to the drive and the link forwarded.
To purchase access to the resources, click here.

Return to top

2. Activities of Open Days
At yesterday's Lab Techs' Workshops, Man Lam from Mount Alexander College, presented and demonstrated an extensive range of activities that he had personally designed and constructed. Neil Champion has been a consultant on the project and assisted with the presentation.
Man Lam has prepared 12 pages of support notes. For each activity, there is:

equipment required including supplier and cost,
Tips on how to set up and trouble shooting,
Notes and curriculum links.

The material can be downloaded from this Vicphysics webpage at the bottom under 'Information for Participants'.

Return to top

3. Events for Students

a) Holiday programs
i) Swinburne Wantirna campus: 19 - 21 September. Prep to Year 8. Cost: $24.50 for one hour session. For further information click here.
ii) Australian Synchrotron: 19 & 20 September. Years 8 - 10 and 10 - 12 programs. Costs: $40 - $55 for half day workshops. For further information click here.
iii) Swinburne Hawthorn campus. 25 & 26 September. Prep - 8. Cost: $24.50 for one hour workshop. For further information click here.
iv) Royal Society of Victoria (RSV): 25th September. STEM via LEGO Modelling and Robotics. For primary students, 10am to 4pm at RSV Hall, 8 La Trobe St, Melbourne. Cost $120. For more details click here.

b) Physics Days at Luna Park in 2024
Earlier this year over 2800 students attended the four days at Luna Park, so Luna Park has offered five days for next year. The dates are Monday 4th March to Friday 8th March.
Luna Park bookings will not open until next term, but schools can now seek approval for their school administrations. The student fee has not been finalised, this year it was $29.50.
Aerobatic displays have been requested, but confirmation is not received until February.
The worksheets have not been updated since they were first written in 2004. The terminology for forces has changed and there have been some content changes, so the worksheets will be updated in Term 4.

There are several phone apps that can be used to record motion at Luna Park including Physphox, SparkVue, EasySense, Vernier and Physics Toolbox. For safety reasons phones cannot be held during the ride and must be securely pocketed. A vest for a phone or datalogger can be booked, more details later.

Ann-Marie Pendrill from Lund University in Sweden has written a number of articles on amusement park physics that are available on 'open access'. This one is on 'Smart phones and Newton's First Law in escalators and roller coasters'. Over 20 more can be found by going to the search key at the top of the article, typing in her name and clicking 'open access only' down on the left.

Return to top

4. Events for Teachers

The Force and Motion Workshops: John Monash Science School and Christian College Geelong
The intensive module steps teacher 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

These two events are next term. They will be six two-hour sessions with the JMSS event on Thursdays from 26th October and the Geelong event on Tuesdays from 24th October, starting at 4:30pm for both venues.
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.

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:
9:00       Welcome
9:15       Presentation on new content in the Study Design, in particular additions to Special Relativity with Theo Hughes, Cornish College
10:00     Small Group Discussion on Course Planning: teaching order, weeks per Area of Study, etc.
10:40     Morning Tea
11:10 School-based Assessment for Unit 3 and 4 with Maria James, VCAA Science Manager
12:00      Small Group Discussion on Assessment Tasks: consideration of examples, completion of a draft,
12:45 Lunch
1:30     Presentation on styles of practical activities with Rachael Gore, Albert Park College
2:15 Small Group Discussion on selecting practical activities.
3:00       Finish
Lunch will be provided for in-person participants.
Cost: $90 non-subscribers, $80 subscribers in person. $50 non-subscribers, $40 subscribers online.
Registrations are open at the Vicphysics website.

PHYSCON 2024: 23rd February, 2024. Call for presenters

Victorian Physics Teachers' Conference Friday, 23rd February, 2024 at Swinburne University of Technology

The Conference website will go live on the first day of Term 4.

For PHYSCON 2024 we are scheduling four workshop sessions in addition to innovative and inspiring keynotes from quantum specialist Dr Liam Hall and astronomer Dr Sara Webb, check our PHYSCON 2024 webpage for details.
One of the workshop presenters will be Joe Cossette from the US. Joe has just been named as 2023 Teacher of the Year by the Physics Teacher Education Coalition (PhysTEC), which is a partnership of the American Physics Society (APS) and the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT). This is his webpage. Another is Prof Alan Duffy from Swinburne on

We will be live streaming as many suitable sessions as possible, so that the experience is accessible to all physics teachers. Participants will also be able to attend important VCAA update sessions and presentations from the Chief Assessor of the VCE Physics examination.

Conference fees:

Type	Early Bird	After 20th Dec
In Person	$320	$350
Online	$270	$300

Discounts:

Individual Vicphysics Subscribers: $50
Student and Retiree Subscribers: $100
School Vicphysics subscribers: $10

Registrations will open on the first day of Term 4.

Return to top

5. 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.
Scoresby Secondary College has placed an ad on the webpage. Applications close 7th September.
There are seven (7) 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.

Koonung Secondary College (closes 4th October)
Viewbank College (closes 18th September)
Wangaratta High School (closes 1st October)
Mount Eliza Secondary College (closes 25th September)
Gladstone Park Secondary College (closes 29th September)
Mt Ridley P - 12 College (closes 1st October)
MacRobertson Girls' High School (closes 1st October)

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.

Return to top

6. Vicphysics matters

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.

Return to top

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) So you think hard disks are boring? It’s time to get real
What is a skyrmion?. It’s a whirling, nanometre-sized topological defect in a thin magnetic film that could provide a new form of computer memory. Skyrmions could be particularly useful out in space where conventional computer memory can easily get corrupted by cosmic radiation.
b) Fallout from nuclear weapons testing explains the ‘wild boar paradox’ of radioactive meat
Wild boar and the wooden platforms used for hunting them are a common sight in European forests, but in some areas their meat contains such high levels of radioactive caesium that it cannot be sold for human consumption. Worse, radiation levels in wild boar have remained constant for the past 30 years, even though the well-understood physics of half-lives and a countervailing trend in other forest animals suggest the levels ought to be falling.
c) Heart-inspired pump boosts energy efficiency
Pumping patterns that mimic the human heartbeat can drastically reduce turbulence in a fluid that is pumped through pipes, researchers in Austria have discovered. Through a simple set of experiments, Björn Hof and colleagues at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria showed how pumping pulses interspersed with rest periods could lead to the development of far more efficient pumping techniques.

a) Return to top