Resources and Events

A few great physics education links

June 23, 2011

It’s time for shameless filler — good links that I’ve run across.  I always feel like it’s a cop-out to post these, but people tell me they really like them, so I guess I’ll stop feeling like a loser when I point to other peoples’ useful content. 21 Influential Females Every Science Student Should Know. [...]

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A new site for identifying misconceptions

June 9, 2011

When teaching, it’s crucial to know what your students tend to have difficulty with, so you can target your instruction to those topics. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) just released a really nicely designed website called Science Assessment for identifying these common student difficulties with content in life science, physical science, [...]

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Cat bowling: YouTube physics for the classroom!

May 26, 2011

I was just shown this wonderful little video, thanks to local high school teacher Michael Fuchs.  What does a cat and a laser pointer have to do with inertia and friction?  Check it out.  What a great way to start a class on inertia…  

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Young Voices on Climate Change

April 11, 2011

Here’s a really cool project, getting young people involved in community action.  I’ve been wanting to write about this for a while.  Lynne Cherry (a well known children’s book author, has produced a series of short films about young people who are taking action about climate change.  Each story is a little different — a [...]

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Phylm – make a film about physics!

March 23, 2011

Phylm /’film/ n. [physics + film] The fourth annual Phylm Prize is now open!  Until May 13, anyone can enter a film — though students are especially encouraged — about physics.  The first year’s winners were a set of students with the Special Relativity Rap.  The second year was Science Made Fun about black holes [...]

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Come check out the geekgirl makeover!

March 7, 2011

I was really unhappy with the clunky look of the site, and so decided I’d just do a “few quick” adjustments.  Hah.   Six months later I’m finally rolling out the new site design, including a new WordPress theme, an easier navigation, a secure contact site, and a spiffy new header image.  Even if you usually [...]

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Free webinars on clickers — how to use them and how to teach about them

January 13, 2011

Hey, I just wanted readers to know about my two upcoming webinars on clicker use.  One is on how to teach faculty how to use clickers effectively — basically, some tips on effective professional development.  That’s coming up next Tuesday!  The second is a repeat of an earlier webinar — how to use clickers effectively.  [...]

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List of Links: Some more helpful resources in science education

December 16, 2010

Yet another collection of cool stuff I’ve come across recently: High speed video of lightning flashes. Click on the link even just to see the front-page video, which is extraordinary.  You could analyze this for hours!  Unfortunately he doesn’t allow them to be reproduced, so I can’t show you here.  Just click! Science Tarot. This [...]

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Geeky gifts

November 26, 2010

It’s black Friday!  Stay away from the mall and do some geek shopping.   Here are a few ideas: Giant Microbes are always a hit. Many years ago, my housemate gave me the common cold. I eventually gave it to my boyfriend (now my ex). No word yet on whether he’s recovered. At least I didn’t [...]

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Webinar: Writing great (science) clicker questions

November 1, 2010

The kind folks at i>clicker have invited me back to give another webinar on effective use of personal response systems.  This one’s called Writing Great Clicker Questions and will be focused on techniques and tips in writing questions that get students discussing and debating — questions that help students learn, rather than just assessing what [...]

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List of helpful educational links

November 1, 2010

This was popular next time so I thought I’d do it again!  Here is a list of helpful educational links that I’ve come across in the last few weeks.  Many are from the NSTA Freebies page. Paul Hewitt’s Next Time Questions (with solutions).  Freely downloadable from Arbor Scientific, this cartoon series is intended to keep [...]

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Physics and science posters

October 28, 2010

If you need physics posters for your classroom, Zazzle is one place you might look.  Anyone can upload a poster (so if you need to make one, and just want someone to ship you a nice laminated copy, you can do that here). Here’s what a search for Periodic Table (restricted to Posters only) gave [...]

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Grants and Cheap Materials for Teachers

October 25, 2010

I’ve been compiling this list for a little while.  Please feel free to add to it. First, you can always make stuff with string and duct tape, using sites like the Exploratorium Science Snacks. But, if you need money: Grants Donors Choose. This program connects potential donors to classrooms.  As a teacher, you indicate your [...]

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Some great stuff from the blogosphere this month

October 20, 2010

As usual, I’m not the only one with witty, elegant prose.  So, a shout-out to some of the great stuff that has been posted out there.  Isn’t the internet nifty? Project Stratosphere. This is a sort of educational citizen-science project.  They’ll   launch a series of small balloons into the high atmosphere to gather data, [...]

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How do teachers organize their stuff?

September 13, 2010

Maybe teachers could have used this post during the summer, when you — theoretically — had some time to pay to organization. Still, I collected this short list of helpful tips from a listserv a while ago, and wanted to share. For example, how do you keep your hands-on activities organized?  .  This link will [...]

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Just look down three posts…

September 2, 2010

For all you nice physicists who are hitting the blog because of the shout-out in the AAPT e-NNOUNCER, just scroll down three blog posts to find my listing of all my posts from AAPT. I welcome guest posts about sessions that I didn’t make it to! Just drop me a note at stephanie (at) sciencegeekgirl [...]

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A bunch of “best of” science sites…

June 1, 2010

get sent these “best of” lists every once in a while.  I can’t vouch for how good they are, especially since they’re created by commercial sites trying to draw traffic to their site, but they often seem like potentially useful compendiums of links.  Here’s a bunch that I’ve saved up. 40 Best Social Sites for [...]

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Summer programs for science teachers and students

February 14, 2010

In the midst of winter’s snowfalls, it’s time to consider what you (and your students) might be doing this summer.  Here is a list of all the different summer program  opportunities for science teachers and students I’ve run across recently. Firstly, NSTA publishes a list of professional development opportunities here. Their list includes: The STORM [...]

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Science geek resources

January 29, 2010

Here’s a list o’ lists, a compilation of compilations, all sorts of science geek resources that you might find helpful! First, here’s a list of blogs about women and science (mine made the list, woo-hoo!).  This is a nice little list with descriptions of each of the blogs and their perspective (from Under the Microscope, [...]

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The science of the winter olympics

January 15, 2010

NBC Learn has a bunch of free online educational videos, such as word roots and documentaries.  Now, with the NSF, they also have a set of videos all about the winter olympic games!  The science of snowboarding, hockey, figure skating, and more!  I took a look and was favorably impressed — they’re about 5 minutes [...]

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