June2009 e-Wave

Alabama Section of AAPT

Section News:

The Alabama Section will sponsor another “Silent Auction” but this time at the ASTA Fall Conference at the McWane Center on October 20^th. 25% will come to the Section while 75% will go to an ASTA Teacher Travel to NSTA award. We made almost $300 at our small auction at the University of Montevallo. I am appealing to all ASTA members to contribute and receive a free bidding number. Maybe you have some “other” science items you might want to donate. But save all the BEST/PHYSICS for our Second Semester Section meeting. We should have a date and place for the spring semester meeting by the middle of October.

We will also try to recruit new members for the Section at ASTA. We already have some new members form the summer AMSTI/Science in Motion Institutes at all sites. We are a great secret we want to share!

Travel Award

We did not receive any applications for the Barry Walker AAPT Travel Award. Consider this an invitation for members to suggest other ways for us to use our funds.

Contact:

Stan Jones, Section Representative stjones@bama.ua.edu

Marllin Simon, President msimon@physics.auburn.edu

Duane Pontius, President Elect dpontius@bsc.edu

Chuck Hanke, Past President hankec@montevallo.edu

Tommi Holsenbeck, Sec/Treas eholsenbeck@alasu.edu

Birmingham-Southern College's planetarium director, Roswitha Becker-Ingram, has retired after 30 years of service, and the college is considering future development options. Duane Pontius attended the recent meeting of SEPA (South Eastern Planetarium Association) in Nashville and found that there are a number of planetariums (planetaria?) in Alabama. He would like to invite anyone with an interest or background in this topic to contact him at dpontius@bsc.edu. Perhaps a group can gather to share ideas.

Internet Sites to check out: