Exploring Other Worlds: a Project in Planetary Science Class

Planetary science is a highly interdisciplinary field, it often requires knowledge of physics, chemistry, geology, biology, and atmospheric science. In addition much of what we know of planets and moons come from missions that are exemplars of good engineering practices. In order to give my students a very basic understanding of what a planetary scientist does, they do a project that simulates the process of designing, proposing, operating, and analyzing the data from a robotic mission to a planet or moon. In this workshop, participants will work in groups to go through the steps of this project

Session B-5: Planetary Science and the NGSS

The goal of this session is to use what we understand about other planets and moons in our Solar System in order to get a better understanding of the Earth

Session B-1: Model building in Planetary Science and the NGSS

In this session I will guide teachers through the steps my students take in Planetary Science to develop a conceptual model of how planetary interiors work. Teachers will then create concept maps from their conceptual models, and then use their models and maps to understand planetary systems other than Earth

Introductory Classical Mechanics: An Alternate Order of Concepts

A novel approach to teaching an introductory physics course is to study the principles of classical mechanics in the order of increasing complexity. Participate in this session to explore an interesting series of progression: from concepts that describe an object at rest, to an object with constant velocity, followed by those that describe how an object’s velocity can change, and finally, gravity. This session will engage participants in the study of this progression and include discussion

TEACHING THE ENGINEERING CYCLE THROUGH A SERIES OF PROJECTS

The goal of this session is to show how a series of similar engineering projects can help students not only understand the engineering cycle but also other aspects of engineering such as communication, inclusion, goal setting, and planning and organization. Attendees may choose to bring their own safety eyewear

Session A-3: Energy Conservation

This session will focus on the content and different activities that you can do with your students to meet the Next Generation Physical Science Standard 3: Energy. The focus will be on definitions of energy, conservation of energy, and the relationship between energy and forces. The content is appropriate for both middle and high school science students

Session 1e: Nuclear Energy: Then, Now and the Future

Nuclear power is one of the most feared and misunderstood energy sources available, and its unique advantages - extraordinary power production with no emissions - weigh against its disadvantages - possibility of meltdowns, difficulty of waste disposal, and potential weaponization. This session will explore some of the basics of nuclear power through a variety of interactive activities for students and give an overview of the economics and risks associated with nuclear power. It will also discuss potential future technologies, including fusion, and how they would change worldwide energy production

Teaching Problem Solving in Physics

In this session, participants will discuss curricular, pedagogic, and assessment points of view. While this session will begin by focusing on an introductory high school physics level, we will have discussions on how to extend these concepts to both higher and lower levels. Participants will create both formative and summative assessment questions to focus on certain aspects of problem solving

Session E-1: Teaching Global Climate Change

In this session I will cover the science global climate change in some depth, how I teach the subject in my Planetary Science class, and discuss misconceptions and difficulties that students (or people in general) might have in understanding the topic