UI Physics & Astronomy
2000 Newsletter

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Outreach Activities/Highlights

The Department of Physics and Astronomy conducted many successful outreach programs this past year. Besides visits to the Department by several high school science classes, the Department sent many students, teaching assistants, staff, and faculty to talk to surrounding high school, junior high, and elementary groups and classes. Several faculty members also participated in job shadowing with students, so students would see what it is like to be a physicist for a day. Faculty members who gave talks at area schools included Profs. Tom Hasenberg and Richard Ignace (Southeast Junior High, Iowa City), Wayne Polyzou and Vincent Rodgers (Northwest Junior High, Coralville), and Fred Skiff (Mid-Prairie High School, Wellman). Research group members of Profs. Louis Frank and Donald Gurnett were also very involved in the community by visiting area schools and presenting talks to many different organizations.

Other outreach highlights included a program initiated by Lecture Demonstration Coordinator, Dale Stille, to lend demonstration equipment to high school teachers, and also train them in the use of the equipment. The Department also has a program which donates surplus laboratory equipment to high schools in Iowa. This program donates such items as power supplies, wave generators, magnetometers, weight sets, and oscilloscopes. Two of the largest recipients to date have been North High School, Des Moines, IA and Calamus-Wheatland High School, Wheatland, IA.

This past year the department participated in the Belin-Blank Information and Technology Fair by hosting a booth which displayed a large array of demonstrations. Profs. Wayne Polyzou, Mary Hall Reno, and Vincent Rodgers represented the Department as well as Dale Stille (Lecture Demonstration Coordinator), Ramon Torres-Isea (Lab Coordinator), and Andreas Soemadi (Graduate Student).

In February, a group of six faculty and staff members visited Rockwell Collins in Cedar Rapids. Alan Tribble, a former physics PhD student, organized the discussion and tour with approximately eight Rockwell Collins employees who work in the human resources and advanced research divisions.

Through these many programs, the department continues to strive to educate the public in the many areas of research and academics related to physics and astronomy.