Some university physics students volunteer in informal physics programs like youth camps, demo shows, and public lectures. These experiences help physics student volunteers to build connections with faculty and their peers, connect their formal learning to the real world, and support their physics identity. These experiences can also influence the career pathways of their participants. Here, we examine the career experiences of alumni who had volunteered in informal physics as students and have since gone on to become informal physics program leaders. By looking at this subgroup, we hypothesize that program leaders had some impactful informal physics experiences that led them to careers in informal education. We can use this as an initial step to understanding the commonalities in experiences for volunteers more broadly. The resulting themes could be of use to practitioners in better understanding and improving their own programs.

Becoming an Informal Physics Program Leader: Experiences and Choices

Women and Minorities in the Physical Sciences (WaMPS) is a graduate student organization housed in the department of physics and astronomy at Michigan State University. WaMPS is a student-led organization encouraging women and minorities to pursue the physical sciences and supporting those who are already members of the physical science community. WaMPS outreach and public engagement includes school visits, public presentations, podcasting, and collaborations with community partners and members in other academic fields. By volunteering and participating in public engagement activities, students can build connections with peers and faculty, connect their formal learning to the real world, feel more connected to their field, and have opportunities to share their own experiences with others. In this talk, we focus on the experiences of graduate students who have participated and contributed in the WaMPS public engagement activities and the intersections with their career goals and aspirations.

Supporting graduate students through opportunities in physics public engagement activities

Informal physics programs create spaces through various formats to bring together physicists, physics students and public audiences. The facilitators, volunteers, and audience members each bring their own knowledge, experiences, and interests to these spaces which, in addition to availability of resources, influences the physics content and activities that these programs employ. As one part of our greater qualitative research study, we analyze interview data from lead facilitators of multiple informal physics programs with different formats to better understand the key organizational factors important to the design and implementation of meaningful informal physics activities. In this poster, we discuss common aspects from personnel, audiences, and available resources that impact informal physics content and activities, and consider the implications of COVID.

Understanding Influencing Factors of Informal Physics Content and Activities

Informal physics programs facilitate learning spaces that allow for physicists, physics students, and public audiences to interact and engage with each other in a variety of formats, such as public lectures, summer camps and open houses. We want to understand how programs can be sustained over time, and thus, we are interested in documenting the critical organizational dimensions of informal programming, like personnel involved, audience satisfaction, and program content. To identify main challenges across programs, we conducted surveys, interviews with lead program facilitators, and site visits to multiple programs of varying formats. From emergent themes and challenges in our data analysis, we are developing and validating a model for the key organizational components of informal physics programs. In this talk, we share our current key components model of informal programs and discuss future work to develop tools for program facilitators to assess their programs.

Identifying the key organizational components of informal physics programming

Informal physics learning environments bring physicists, physics students, and public audiences together in a variety of formats. Popular events include youth camps, public lectures, and demo shows. However, these format-focused labels do not illuminate underlying factors important for the design and implementation of informal physics activities. Here, we present results from a qualitative research study to investigate the aspects of informal physics programs that are critical to their functionality. Drawing from organizational theory, we code interviews with program leaders for emergent themes within the broad categories of personnel, audience, resources, institution, and programs. The emergent themes form the basis for our developing model of key components that are necessary for informal physics programs to function. We share our current model for these key components and discuss future work to develop practitioner tools to assess programs.

Developing A Model of Key Components of Informal Physics Programming

(EF) PER: Diverse Investigations I

technical paper

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.



AAPT SM 22

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.

B3 - Other Papers

This meeting is a great opportunity to explore sessions and workshops designed with your professional development in mind. Present your research and exchange ideas on the latest in teaching and pedagogy. Participate in a wide range of events, activities, plenaries, and so much more, connecting you with peers and colleagues who share your commitment to excellence in physics education.

AAPT WM 22

Poster Session 2B

poster

**Making Physics More Inclusive and Eliminating Exclusionary Practices in Physics**

As a gateway discipline to STEM majors and careers, physics plays a central role in deciding who does, and who doesn't, get to discover and pursue scientific careers. Technical and scientific professionals are rewarded with economic privilege and status which affords them both social and cultural power. Therefore, social justice will be realized only when the opportunity, and the choice, to excel in physics is open to all students. The culture and practices of the physics classroom reflect the culture of physics at large, which raises the question of how our professional physics communities can embrace, rather than inadvertently repel, a diverse group of academics that can help improve physics culture.  To this end, the 2021 Physics Education Research Conference will focus on defining inclusive spaces and practices. Additionally, we will explore strategies for eliminating exclusionary practices in our classrooms, research spaces, and professional organizations. We call on the community to propose sessions that will drive conversations related to these initiatives throughout PERC 2021.

Please download the full program [here. ](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TRMC_SYJ3PUqXyP7sskA7LRSA8ow0eRE/view?usp=sharing)

PERC SM 21

August 4, 2021 - August 5, 2021 in a Virtual Conference Format

Making Physics More Inclusive and Eliminating Exclusionary Practices in Physics

PS.B-SA-07: PER: Diverse Investigations II

Join AAPT and Physics Educators worldwide in developing and strengthening your professional connections by attending the 2021 AAPT Virtual Summer Meeting. 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. Attending the virtual summer meeting is an excellent opportunity to share your expertise and learn from and network with leaders in the field.

Please log in with your AAPT account or register for the event if you haven't already.

If you are registered please note that you need to be logged in with your AAPT email / credentials in order to get access.

AAPT SM 21

B1.5 PER: Diverse Investigations

AAPT® is a strong professional physics science society dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in physical science education.

Winter and Summer National Meetings:
These National Meetings, held each winter and summer, are opportunities for members, colleagues, and future physicists from around the world to:

- participate in physics workshops
- meet and greet other physics educators
- form networks nationally and locally
- engage exhibitors and learn about the latest physics resources
- discuss innovations in teaching methods
- share the results of research about teaching and learning.

If you're not able to log in, you're most likely using **incorrect login credentials**. Double-check that you are using the same email and password that you used to register for the conference, submit your abstract or access your AAPT membership. There may also be **an issue with your AAPT meeting registration**. Please email aapt2021@underline.io and programs@aapt.org and we will work quickly to resolve this issue.

Bryan Stanley

5

SHORT BIO

Presentations

Becoming an Informal Physics Program Leader: Experiences and Choices

Supporting graduate students through opportunities in physics public engagement activities

Understanding Influencing Factors of Informal Physics Content and Activities

Identifying the key organizational components of informal physics programming

Developing A Model of Key Components of Informal Physics Programming

Stay up to date with the latest Underline news!

PRESENTATIONS

CONFERENCES

COMPANY

RESOURCES