Welcome to the website of the

Alabama Section

of the

American Association of Physics Teachers

Annual Report, 2012

Alabama Section, AAPT

1. Annual Meeting

The 2012 annual meeting of the AL section of AAPT was held at the beautiful Heritage Conference Center on Lay Lake, in Childersburg AL. Our hosts were Jefferson State Community College and Central Alabama Community College. Our hosts and their spouses provided meals and snacks, and we are greatly appreciative of this wonderful hospitality. Many section members came Friday night for fellowship, a look at the entries for the Physics Commercial Contest (see below), and a show and tell presentation. Oh, and dinner. The meeting continued on Saturday. About 30 teachers and students were in attendance.

Talks presented Saturday included:

· The CACC Science Team (sponsored by Nick Nickerson)

· Pythagorean Triplets and Quartets (Duane Pontius)

· Demonstrating Simple Harmonic Motion with a cell phone (Alan Hargrave)

· Physics Misconceptions (Justin Sanders)

· Simulating Peak Oil (Mark Rupright)

· Photoelectric Effect demo/lab (Chuck Hanke)

· Fun Fly Stick (Dan O’Halloran)

· A Brief History of Electromagnetism and Light on Stamps (Ali Yazdi).

During the Business Meeting that followed, Justin Sanders was elected to the position of section President-Elect.

2. Physics Commercial Contest

With outstanding leadership by Tommi Holsenbeck, the section co-sponsored a video competition for high school students. The Alabama Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers, Alabama Science Teachers Association, The Frederick and Florence Bauder Endowment for the Support of Physics Teaching, Huntingdon College and AMSTI/Science in Motion sponsored this competition in 2012.  The hope of all these organizations is that sharing the love, excitement, fun and importance of physics, these talented students will influence their peers to select physics in high school.

Participants were invited to create a video of up to 2 minutes duration that would convince other students to take physics. Ten entries were received, and these were reviewed by judges at the annual section meeting. Winners, who received a cash award, were

· 1^st Guntersville HS

· 2^nd Carroll HS

· 3^rd E. Limestone HS

The winning videos have been copied onto DVD and distributed to all public high schools in the state.

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