Went to washington on Monday and Tuesday.
Had a visit with Faith San Felice of American Association of Community Colleges and got some contacts in Alabama along with some ideas of how to start.
Had a visit with Congressman Bob Riley as a matter of networking, there really isn't anything he could do for me directly. That was really fun. I got the royal treatment because I was a genuine constituent rather than a lobbyist or politician. I'd made an appointment to see him at 3:00. He had a line of people in his outer office when I arrived. I got to go to the head of the line and he insisted on seeing everything I wanted to show and tell him, in spite of the 5 phone calls and other interruptions during our 30 minute meeting. He seemed genuinely enthusiastic about the Science Teams. He told me to take this to the state superintendent of schools.
The short tirade I imposed upon both of them is enclosed. (Click here )
On Wednesday and Thursday I clanged around the physics department at the University of Virginia. Yes, school is out and most everyone is gone, but, like physicists everywhere, the physics building is booming. They even had a speaker on Wednesday afternoon talking about the latest and greatest efforts in high energy particles.
Didn't understand much that he said, but i did get to introduce myself to several physics teachers and make an appointment to visit two of them the next day.
What I found out the next day was, that of the thirty odd physics teachers there, all but three still teach physics to same way it has been taught for the last two hundred years, even though most agree students learn physics in spite of them.
The one who is making the most effort to change the way he is teaching physics, Steve Thornton, is exactly where I was in 1992. He got a NSF grant awarded this April, just received his computer lab equipment, is in the process of rewiring his lab so it can accommodate computers and the internet. He attended the Workshop Physics seminar at Dickison College last summer that I attended in the summer of 1993.
He is feverishly preparing to teach using this new equipment and methods beginning next January. Everybody is really excited since this will be the first time they've had computers in undergraduate physics labs!
I also dropped by the stockroom. Man! It looks like a high-tech Wal-mart! Then stopped by at the demonstration department. These are the people in charge of setting up demonstrations for lecturers. Got a couple of good websites to rummage around in for ideas for demos.
http://demolab.phys.virginia.edu/demos/demolab.asp