The INDIANA  SECTION held its ANNUAL  SPRING  MEETING APRIL  14-15,  2000, at Franklin  College, Franklin,  Indiana  The Friday evening session opened with a WORKSHOP -- EXPERIMENTS IN ACOUSTICS, primarily for high school teachers, conducted by Uwe J. Hansen, Professor Emeritus, Department of Physics, Indiana State University, Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America.  This workshop emphasized resonances in strings, speed of sound in air, spectral analysis of sounds, and resonance in closed tubes.   Some equipment was donated to the 20 high school teachers in attendance for use in their classrooms.  The rest of the evening sessions were make-and-take and demonstrations sharing sessions.

Some of these were:   1) Mike Moloney, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology—WAVELENGTH OF LIGHT:---rigged up two tiny Christmas-tree light bulbs in parallel across 2 1.5-v batteries. When you look at them through a piece of cloth, you see two sets of interference patterns, one from each bulb. The idea is to line up the patterns then move laterally until they shift over by one dot.  Using a magnifier to determine the cloth Spacing d, and calculating some angles, you can determine the wavelength of light to roughly 2 sig figs. Using a red and blue filter tells without calculations that red has the longer wavelength;  2)   Mike Moloney, Rose-Hulman — WIND CHIMES  -- using electrical conduit  (TPT, November 99).  3) LINEAR MOTION ACTIVITY:  Charles Emmert, Noblesville HS – DUNE BUGGIES.

             The Saturday sessions were contributed papers.  These included:

Transmission resonance in semiconductor nanostructures, Yong S. Joe (ysjoe@bsu-cs.bsu.edu), Ball State U.

Optimizing a nanoelectronic device: electronic stub tuner.  Taran Villoch, tevilloch@bsu.edu.  Using T-matrices and Mathematica@ to study electrons in one-dimensional potentials. Kevin Tajkowski, Ball State U.

Modeling arm-hand motion and the intention tremor.  Matt Powers (mdpowers@bsuvc.bsu.edu), Ball[endif]> State U.

Creating an arm model in Mathematica@. James McWilliams (jhmcwilliams@bsuvc.bsu.edu) Ball State U.

Implementation of a New Data Acquisition Software Package for Analyzing Data at NSCL.  Daniel Prager, Robert Cox, Ron Fox*, Ruth Howes, Ball State U.

Photoelectric Effect Demonstration. Ahmed Alhkalifah (alkhalifah@usa.net), Ball State U. Using Planetarium Emulators in Introductory Astronomy,Nick Steph, Franklin College (stephn@franklincoll.edu)

The Oakley Observatory at Rose-Hulman. Richard Ditteon , Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (ditteon@RoseVC.Rose-Hulman.Edu).

A Paperless Lab Manual - Lessons Learned.  Daniel L. Hatten, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (daniel.l.hatten@rose.hulman.edu), Margaret W. Hatten

Quality Factor and Energy Losses in Cylindrical Pipes.  Daniel L. Hatten and Michael J. Moloney, Rose-Hulman (michael.j.moloney@rose.hulman.edu).

Investigating Physical Optics with a Diode Laser and Homemade slits.  Howard L. Brooks (hlbrooks@depauw.edu) and Andrew J. Smith, DePauw University. 

RLC Circuit board.    Jim Vermillion, Merrillville HS (JOVPhys@ aol.com),

Using Toy Dart Guns to Investigate Projectile Motion. Cherie Bibo Lehman, West Lafayette Jr-Sr HS (cblehman@ecn.purdue.edu

Designing and Building a Mobile as an Authentic Assessment Activity, . Cherie Bibo Lehman. http://www.wl.k12.in.us/depts/science/physics_g/lehman.html

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BUSINESS  MEETING-President Nick Steph, Presiding.

                        Presentation of “Outstanding Physics Teacher Award” for high school physics to Bill McFerran, Greenwood High School, Greenwood, IN.   For the first time, a Distinguished Teacher Award was presented, the recipient being Bob Kasting, East High School, Columbus, IN.

A drawing for door prizes donated by science supply companies included: gift certificate and “Physics of Sports” posters from Science Kit;  gift certificates from Fisher Scientific Co.;  gift certificates from Vernier Software.

Election of officers:  President = Charles Emmert, Noblesville (IN) High School;

            Vice-President = Bob Kasting, East H.S., Columbus;

            Secretary = Darryl Steinert, Hanover (IN) College;

            Treasurer = Steve Spickelmire, University of Indianapolis (IN).

Future Meetings:  Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, April 20-21, 2001;

                                    Hanover College, 2002.

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A very inspiring talk was given by

THE  LUNCHEON  GUEST  SPEAKER

AAPT  PRESIDENT  –  RUTH  HOWES

“The Brave New World of Physics 2000”

Ruth H. Howes. Ball State University, Muncie, IN 47306. rhowes@bsu.edu

As we start the next millennium, we recognize that the world surrounding physics teachers has changed.  Physics itself has changed, partly because of the widespread use of computers.  The students in our classroom have changed.  They are more diverse ethnically and economically, and they bring skills different from those of students twenty years ago.  The environment in which high school and college teachers operate has changed with more public focus on issues like assessment.  Physics Education Research has taught us much about how students learn physics.  Finally, the public perception of physics has changed.  This new environment provides physics teachers with a real opportunity to make physics courses in the 21st century even more exciting than those of the 20th century.

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Charles Emmert, Secretary/Program Chair, Charles_Emmert@mail.nobl.k12.in.us

Nick Steph, President,  stephn@franklincoll.edu

Darryl Steinert, Vice-President, steinert@hanover.edu