
Joe Parker lights Professor Jones’ hand on fire during a Physics Day demonstration. Photo by Tyler Aldous
The Idaho-Utah AAPT 2015 Conference was hosted by Snow College this year, which included speakers, raffles, a poster session, and a physics demonstration. AAPT stands for American Association of Physics Teachers, but physics teachers weren’t the only ones to enjoy the conference.
On Friday, March 13, a physics demo was held in the Huntsman Library Auditorium. It was open and free to the public, so many students, as well as members of the community, were able to watch the demonstrations. There were also many children watching the presentations as well. Some of them were even lucky enough to be picked by the presenters from the audience to come help with the demonstrations.
The show was comprised of a variety of different types of physics demonstrations, which were good ways to show the different aspects of physics concepts, as well as being entertaining even for the children who couldn’t grasp the concepts yet.
Teachers who attended the conference were encouraged to take advantage of seeing the demonstrations so that they could incorporate the examples into their own classes.
Snow College students Rob Stoddard and Aaron Bame did one of the demonstrations. They showed how to suck an egg into an empty soda bottle. Another demonstration included lighting a professors hands on fire. The abundance of interesting demonstrations kept the audience entertained all night.
Joe Goldhardt was one of the many students who enjoyed the physics demonstration. He said, “It was interesting to see applications of what I have learned about in class, and it was cool that so many little kids were there being exposed to science.”