Projects

If I had Done It: Top Physics Experiments from a K-12 Perspective

This program that encourages students to devise, perform, and document their own experiements relating to one of the top ten most beautiful experiments (as reported in NY Times - 2002). Here is a brief description of what sets these experiments apart from others:

What they have in common is that they epitomize the elusive quality scientists call beauty. This is beauty in the classical sense: the logical simplicity of the apparatus, like the logical simplicity of the analysis, seems as inevitable and pure as the lines of a Greek monument. Confusion and ambiguity are momentarily swept aside, and something new about nature becomes clear.

Students devise their own experiments and report their results on this (link???) website. Winners are selected by a panel of scientists from Caltech / JPL.

Focus on Learning: A series of interviews with innovative teachers and their remarkable successes.

Dear X,

I am working with the non-profit education support organization, Hallpass & Friends, on a project to help recognize the accomplishments of outstanding educators across America. This project, titled "Focus on Learning" is an audio series (podcast) celebrating innovative teachers and their remarkable successes.

Park City School District has the reputation of being the premire district in Utah and among of the best in the United States. We would love to feature a teacher from your school in our series. Selection of those teachers honored begins with a recommendation by a fellow educator such as yourself, someone who can articulate those qualities that make the teacher and his/her accomplishments so remarkable. We are looking for teachers whose innovative curriculum and/or craft is promoting active learning and fostering life-long learners. These teachers create an learning enviornment that allows students to be creative and take intellectual risks. The use of authentic assessment, the philosophy of student-centric classrooms, and the modeling of a love of learning themselves are among other traits we celebrate.

I would encourage you to recommend someone you consider to be an innovative teacher and whose success is remarkable. Just send me an email discussing the teacher you would like to nominate. Please feel free to email or call me for further information.

Sincerely,

Rob Banning

Digitial Crosswalks

I am also avail email

personalities

curriculum

Remarkable

Innovative

Breakthrough