Interactive Lecture Demos, Oumuamua, and Quantum Leaps

Emily Smith and Natasha Holmes have a new preprint that looks at interactive lecture demos and traditional "verification"-style labs. Interactive lecture demos get the students thinking in a way that primes them to learn new concepts, while traditional labs do not. It's an insightful argument and a valuable read.

I'm a SETI fan, so I was delighted to read the wild speculation about Oumuamua, the cigar-shaped asteroid from beyond our solar system. Unfortunately, it seems not to have been an alien spaceship.

In Physics World, Ken Zetie writes about a database of extracurricular physics reading for especially-motivated high school students. This could potentially be a valuable resource (databases are here).

The Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded this past weekend to the founders of the LIGO observatory. I find myself comparing the esteemed Nobels with the Breakthrough Prize, and wonder if perhaps the latter is now doing a better job of communicating and showcasing some of the ideals of the scientific community. I keep coming back to this short article, with a few statements about gender diversity from the 2017 Nobel laureates: perhaps it could be a prompt if you want to discuss the role of prizes in science.

For those using or considering the use of clickers, Brian Frank has some excellent wisdom in this twitter chain.

I'm fascinated by Quantum Leaps, a project that is soliciting pop-sci articles from scientists about quantum research. The articles will be reviewed by high school students, with the best submissions being published.

It was a good week for YouTube videos, with Physics Girl talking about acoustic levitation, Veritasium on time-reversal asymmetry, and Smarter Every Day looking really carefully at dominos.

Seen online this week:
I like so much about this energy conservation demo from Dan Burns's classroom.
Mark McCaughrean posted this image of Newton's rings from an iPhone 7. Can anyone replicate it?
We see a bit of the workflow (Desmos, whiteboards, worksheets) for Frank Noschese's students.
Matt Blackman took the LED in a water electric field to a glorious new level.
Nathan Belcher has a pretty standing wave.
Patrick Kaplo does a pendulum slice, and it is brilliant.
Dianna Cowern got a lot of great replies when she asked teachers for their favorite demos.

More summer programs for students: