APS News

July 2019 (Volume 28, Number 7)

Education and Diversity News

STEP UP: Changing the Face of Physics

Do you know any high school physics teachers? Did you know that they are the most cited source of inspiration for young women pursuing a physics degree in college? Although half of high school physics students are women, they go on to make up only 20% of physicists at the undergraduate, graduate, and early professional levels. This is why APS and its partner institutions have spent the last two years in a new, but vital, venue for changing the face of physics: high school physics classrooms.

The STEP UP project has built a national consortium of physics educators, researchers, and professional societies to optimize two self-contained lessons for physics classrooms. STEP UP’s lessons have shown great effects, especially for young women, of increased student interest and likelihood to pursue a career in physics. Now, these lessons need to be adopted by high school physics teachers to lead to a nationwide boost in women’s interest in physics when declaring college majors.

This is where you come in! Ask a teacher to register with STEP UP at www.STEPUPphysics.org. Sign up yourself to continue to support the STEP UP movement. Reach out to local high school physics teachers or other networks of physics teachers and recruit them to join the campaign. Together, we can be sure that future generations of physics majors include the rich diversity that the country has to offer.

STEPUP logo with tagline

Save the Date! National Mentoring Community Conference 2020, February 6 - 8, 2020, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida

Join us for the APS National Mentoring Community Conference 2020, held in partnership with the National Society of Black Physicists and National Society of Hispanic Physicists.

We encourage undergraduate physics students from underrepresented groups, faculty interested in discussions of diversity and mentoring within physics education, representatives from summer research internship programs, and other physics professionals to attend.

Travel and housing funding will be available for NMC Mentors and Mentees.

For more information visit the conference website.

Save the Date! 2020 PhysTEC Conference to be held February 29 - March 1 in Denver, Colorado.

Join us at the nation's largest meeting dedicated to the education of future physics teachers, immediately preceding the APS March Meeting 2020, and attend workshops on best practices, panel discussions by national leaders, and excellent networking opportunities for physics teacher educators. Visit the PhysTEC conference site at the 2020 Conference page.

Funding for New PhysTEC Sites

PhysTEC expects to award Recruiting Grants to up to five new sites. Awardees will receive $25,000 to implement a two-year improvement plan that focuses on implementing some of the best practices found in the PTEPA Rubric. Funding is set to begin on July 1, 2020. The rubric, the full Request for Proposals, and submission instructions are available on the PhysTEC website at phystec.org. Proposals are due September 27, 2019 at 5 p.m. local time.

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Editor: David Voss
Staff Science Writer: Leah Poffenberger
Contributing Correspondent: Alaina G. Levine
Publication Designer and Production: Nancy Bennett-Karasik

July 2019 (Volume 28, Number 7)

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Articles in this Issue
New APS Ethics Committee Holds Inaugural Meeting
The 2019 U.S. Physics Team Gets Ready for Israel
Vibrant Networking in the Far West Section
APS Joins Consortium Aimed at Ending Harassment in Science
Murray Gell-Mann 1929-2019
Holocaust Survivor George Zimmerman Leaves Legacy to APS
Sorting Out the Neutron Lifetime
Particle Physics on a Tabletop
This Month in Physics History
Outreach and Public Engagement
Office of Government Affairs
FYI Science Policy News From AIP
Education and Diversity News
International Affairs
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