United States

Only about 20% of individuals earning bachelor’s degrees in physics are women, and roughly 13% are underrepresented racial minorities (URMs). These numbers have remained relatively steady for more than a decade, thus there is a need to investigate ways to improve their representation in physics. Out-of-class science and engineering activities have been shown to influence students’ career interests in physics. This study evaluates how a physics summer camp for high school girls influences the critical physics identities and career interests of the camp participants. We use a mixed-methods approach that includes conducting surveys and interviews. The survey results show overall positive shifts in critical physics identity. The interviews provide insight into which aspects of the physics camp contribute to these shifts as well as how the camp influences URMs.

AAPT SM 22

Impact of a Physics Camp on Girls’ Critical Physics Identities

AAPT meetings are a great way to reflect on your teaching, recommit to best practices and re-energize your career with new research, products, and techniques. Listen to internationally known plenary speakers, attend sessions, workshops, and special activities. This meeting is an excellent opportunity to share your expertise and learn from and network with leaders in the field.



technical paper

“Should a Nobel prize have been awarded to Annie Jump Cannon, Cecilia Payne Gaposchkin, Henrietta Leavitt, Vera Rubin, Margaret Geller, or Jocelyn Bell Burnell? Locate, read, and cite at least three separate sources to justify your response.” This assignment can be used at the beginning of a term to spark interest before students get deadened by their academic load, or can come at the end of the term as a capstone project. Providing a list makes the assignment appear more straightforward. However, since the top hits on the Internet pull up mostly female astronomers, to ask students to argue on behalf of any astronomer overlooked by the Nobel committee produces similar results while preventing any complaints that a social agenda is being pushed.

Deserving of Nobel? The Harvard Computers and other Neglected Pioneers

This presentation highlights the technical engineering systems used to safely and successfully capture real-time video and data from a high-altitude weather balloon during the October 14, 2023 annular eclipse and the April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse. The engineering POD leads and their students have been carefully designing, documenting and testing the systems that will be distributed to the participating forty engineering teams. System components include an Iridium tracking system, a cutdown system, a tracking ground station, a streaming video system, a dual camera system providing 360 degree views, a helium vent valve system for latex balloons, zero pressure balloons, temperature sensors, pressure sensors and precision GPS sensors. Software to support the system components include a real time tracking website, tracking ground station code, dual camera and streaming code, along with the embedded code. Participating teams will learn the systems and have an opportunity to create their own payload.

Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project Engineering Systems Overview

Galactic cosmic rays are high-energy particles that impinge on Earth’s atmosphere, in the form of positively charged particles, protons. The protons interact with atmospheric nuclei to produce a cascade of secondary particles known as a galactic cosmic ray shower. This post-collision secondary shower depends on altitude, latitude, solar activity, and air pressure. The Regener-Pfotzer (R-P) maximum, which is stated to be between 15-25 km, is the altitude where the maximum number of charged particle detections is measured with a Geiger-Müller detector. In order to better understand the dynamics of the collisions, a flight stack containing two payloads was flown. One payload contained four pancake shaped Geiger counters measuring vertical and horizontal charged particle coincidences. The other payload measured the omnidirectional charge particle interactions. Data show that a R-P maximum occurs at different altitudes depending on direction of the coincidences consistent with previous research in this area.

High Altitude Balloon Directional Measurements of Cosmic Ray Shower Events

We investigated how the answer format for online practice affects the learning and assessment of vector addition skills in introductory university physics. Both algebra-based and calculus-based students practiced vector addition throughout their introductory mechanics course using an online testing and mastery practice platform at a large public university. Class sections were split into two training conditions where students either answer in multiple-choice format or free-response format by drawing the answer vector on a grid. We compared pre- and post-tests between the two conditions to determine whether the vector addition format affected performance and training. On the pretest, there were within-student differences in answering and a hierarchy between question types, where almost all the students who can answer the free-response questions correctly can also answer the multiple-choice questions correctly but not vice versa. We will also present the results from the post-test and any implications for instruction.

Learning Vectors Online: Comparing Multiple-Choice to Drawing Vectors

Research suggests that certain incorrect patterns of student reasoning remain even after instruction. Many challenging tasks seem to elicit strong intuitively appealing (but incorrect) responses. Even those students who demonstrate that they possess the formal knowledge necessary to analyze given situations correctly tend not to use this knowledge. Dual-process theories of reasoning suggest that to catch a mistake, (1) a reasoning red flag must be raised, and (2) the validity of a response must be checked. The last step is particularly challenging for many introductory physics students. In this talk, we will discuss the results of a study intended to help students develop validity checking strategies in various situations that require the application of Newton's second law. We will discuss implications for instruction and research.

Teaching Reasoning Skills Necessary to Validate or Reject a Response

We report on a study of response time data on basic algebra questions in undergraduate introductory Physics courses to learn more about its relationship with accuracy. Of specific interest is the importance of familiarity with Physics symbols in algebraic expressions. For isomorphic questions, we investigate the differences in response time and accuracy distributions between two groups of students - one trained with common Math symbols and the other with Physics symbols. We also investigate and compare changes in the response time-accuracy relation for the two symbol formats. To improve the analysis, a response time effort index is created based on the distributions to estimate the number of students making rapid guesses. Important goals of this analysis include gaining insights into how to construct valid and reliable measures of algebra skills relevant for introductory physics, and the extent to which students can improve these skills on time scales of weeks.

Algebra Accuracy and Response Time: Physics vs Common Math Symbols

If you ask a director of recruitment “What’s that thing you do to recruit students?,” you’ll likely get an awkward look. It would be a look similar to the one you would give them if they asked you “What do you teach your majors?” The truth is, effective recruiting requires a strategy, multiple actions, sustained effort, and mindful messaging to effectively market your program. This is especially true for teacher preparation programs because the recruitment efforts need to include marketing the profession itself, not just the discipline that hosts the major. And some marketing will need to be directed toward fellow faculty. Fortunately, Get the Facts Out has vetted resources to help departments tailor media/content to best meet those needs. From presentations, posters, and postcards to shared Google sheets, LFD slides, and mass mailings, I will share my experiences making use of these resources in my local context.

Recruiting Teachers: What’s that thing you do?

In 2020 the University of Illinois launched The Illinois Physics and Secondary Schools (IPaSS) Partnership Program with goals specifically related to increased student interest in STEM in physics through intensive teacher support. The partnership provides teachers with research based resources from the University for classroom use. As a result of pulling together teachers from across the state, the partnership has also created a strong network of emerging teacher-leaders in physics classrooms and the quality of physics instruction is increasing for all participants. This talk will discuss the influence and benefits of the program from the teacher perspective.

Strengthening High School Teacher Quality Through a University Partnership

We investigated the effect of the pandemic on teacher quit rates using public records from the U.S. Dept. of Labor. Over the past 20 years, people employed by public educational institutions (the vast majority of whom are K-12 teachers) voluntarily left their jobs at a lower rate than nearly all other groups. During the pandemic, teacher quit rates did not change significantly, while the quit rates for most other occupation groups rose sharply during 2021. This finding brings up questions about how teachers have been impacted by the pandemic relative to other professionals and has implications for how we talk with students and others about career choices.

Teachers quit at lower rates than most other professionals

This study applied survival analysis to explore outcomes of students pursuing STEM majors at a large, eastern, land-grant university. Students who attended high school in rural locales and those who were first-generation college students displayed qualitatively different patterns of changing majors and of departing the university than did continuing-generation, non-rural students. This suggests that the most crucial points in the college career to provide support or encouragement to make the decision to continue may also differ. Logistic regression was used to examine factors, including high school preparation and college course-taking patterns, that correlate with persistence and successful progress in STEM majors.

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Impact of a Physics Camp on Girls’ Critical Physics Identities

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