The Spring 2024 Meeting of the NC Section of the AAPT will be held in person at Myers Park High School in Charlotte, NC on March 22-23, 2024.  Co-Sponsored by OPTYCS.

• Call for Papers (due by March 10)

• Register for the meeting (due March 17)

• Campus Map

• Hotels   Group rate of $149.00 + tax at Renaissance Charlotte SouthPark Hotel (tel:+1 704-501-2510)  

Use this link to Book your group rate for NCSAAPT Room Block

Start Date: Friday, March 22, 2024

End Date: Sunday, March 24, 2024

Last Day to Book: Monday, March 4, 2024

Charlotte Marriott SouthPark (tel:+1 704-364-8220)

   DoubleTree Suites by Hilton Hotel Charlotte - SouthPark (tel:+1 704-364-2400)

• Meal menu 

Friday Dinner:  Tayste Catering, Charlotte

Saturday Lunch:  Jason's Deli 

(Chicken salad on Croissant, Turkey on Multigrain Wheat, Ham on Country White, Spinach Veggie Wrap)

• Schedule

Friday, March 22

5:00 pm Registration

6:00 pm Dinner and Plenary Talk - Joe Heafner/ Unistellar Telescopes

Saturday, March 23

7:30 am Registration / Breakfast

8:00 am Plenary Talk - Matthew Cass / Project-Based Learning

9:00-10:30 Contributed Talks

 10:30-10:45 am Break

10:45-12:00 pm Contributed Talks

12:00-1:00 pm Lunch and Share-A-Thon and Posters

1:00-3:00 pm Workshops

3:00-4:00 pm NCSAAPT Business meeting

• Program: See below

Invited speakers include Matthew Cass of Smoky Mountain Stem Collaborative who will share Project Based Learning-””The Physics of Place”.  Dwain Desbien of Estrella Mountain Community College, Kris Lui, Sherry Savrda, and Joe Heafner of OPTYCS will offer the following Workshops:

• Matthew Cass - "Project Based Learning - The Physics of Place": A core component of physics is the exploration of the natural world around us. Place-based education leverages the geographical and cultural aspects of a region to build authentic learning experiences. Braiding this concept with project-based learning allows for the creation of meaningful exploration by learners in both what we seek to teach and what matters to them. I will share examples of place-based projects that have been completed by my students at Southwestern Community College and you will have the opportunity to reflect on the assets in your community that you could use to create your own place-based projects.  

• Dwain Desbien - “Avoiding Vector Avoidance, using vectors as vectors in Kinematics, momentum conservation and force problems":  This workshop comes from one sentence from my Ph.D advisor, 'Physics Faculty and students will do anything to avoid using vectors.' After contemplating the meaning of that sentence and how to change it I embarked on how to not avoid vectors in my teaching. As a result, I started using vectors to do 2d constant acceleration problems. From there I began to expand the use of this technique to other areas (collision problems, Newton’s Second Law problems…). This workshop will introduce you to how I approach vectors in these areas and provide practice problems for you to learn from. In addition, discussion of how I introduce this technique to my students.

• Kris Lui and Sherry Savrda - “Identity, Bias and Students' Sense of Belonging”:  Many strategies that promote student success revolve around students' perceptions of belonging and self-efficacy. Understanding their self-identities, as well as our own, and how they interact, is a necessary step in helping students feel capable in our classes. In this workshop, we will explore our own identities, our implicit biases, and outline some ways in which to improve students' sense of belonging in our classrooms.

• Joe Heafner- Unistellar Telescopes  (See QR codes to the left: IOS and Android)

Friday (indoor component and outdoor component):

"Public Outreach with Unistellar Telescopes":  Small aperture, portable, automated telescopes are causing a revolution in astronomy public outreach. In the indoor component of this talk, I will introduce the audience to the Unistellar eVscope 2 and eQuinox 2 telescopes. I will present images taken with both telescopes and discuss how we have used these telescopes at Lucile Miller Observatory (Maiden, NC). My thesis is that this is not amateur astronomy. This is an entirely new way of approaching astronomy that combines all the positive aspects of both outreach and research, and it requires a new mindset. I call it "participatory astronomy." In the outdoor component of this talk (weather permitting), I will present a live demonstration of the telescopes. Attendees are encouraged to bring fully charged iOS or Android phones or tablets with which to use the telescopes. Aside from taking images, we will see that with these new telescopes light pollution is not an issue. This talk and workshop are sponsored by OPTYCs, which is supported by AAPT and generously funded by NSF-DUE-2212807. OPTYCs website: https://optycs.aapt.org/ LMO website: https://catawbasky.org/

Saturday:  Workshop: 

"Research with Unistellar Telescopes":  In this workshop, we will discuss using Unistellar telescopes for research and Citizen Science. These telescopes are currently being used for research in exoplanet transits, supernovae, comets (astrometry, photometry, outbursts), asteroids (astrometry, photometry, safety), asteroid occultations, and monitoring artificial satellites. I will demonstrate various workflows for making and submitting observations, and will show some results, including a publication from a fellow TYC colleague and Unistellar user. This workshop is sponsored by OPTYCs, which is supported by AAPT and generously funded by NSF-DUE-2212807. OPTYCs website: https://optycs.aapt.org/

DISCLAIMER: I have no connections or conflicts of interest whatsoever with Unistellar.