This year's KITP teacher's conference was held on January 14. This conference brings over a hundred science teachers at the middle and high school levels from across the country to Santa Barbara for a day of 'what's new' in different areas of physics with world renowned scientists.
The topic was Graphene and included four great talks including the 2010 Physics Nobel Prize winner Andre Geim, a professor at Manchester University. Other speakers included Eva Andrei from Rutgers University, James Hone from Columbia University, and Jeanie C. Lau from UC Riverside. Rachel Ross of LCOGT also gave an update on LCOGT.
The following morning, a workshop was held at LCOGT which included a tour of the facilities (including the 0.4-meter and 1.0-meter assembly areas, machine shop, and our testing site, BPL) and an introduction to Agent Exoplanet and other resources. Rachel Ross, Jessica Barton, Federica Bianco, and about 20 teachers from all over the country participated in the 4 hour workshop.
Agent Exoplanet, along with a rough draft of a teacher resource, was well received by the group (despite a glitch caused by a recent upgrade which was quickly fixed, thanks Edward) and discussions were taking place about how some of the teachers were going to implement it into their classrooms. Star in a box, also with a rough draft worksheet, also received good feedback.
All-in-all it was a great and very informative conference as well as workshop. Thank you to KITP for inviting us back and the teachers that make these conferences happen!
