The 2009 AGU Fall Meeting
By Michael Towle, University of Memphis
Before I attended the Fall 2009 Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), my professors and fellow graduate students who had attended AGU in previous years gushed about how big it was. Sure, the official website stated that over 16,000 geophysicists would present their research. My mind has trouble processing and visualizing large numbers on a sheet of paper, so I thought, “How big could this rodeo actually get?” Upon arriving at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, I immediately discovered that AGU was incomprehensibly epic in scale.
SPS Outstanding Students Represent USA at ICPS in Croatia
SPS Outstanding Student Award recipients
Josh Fuchs and
Gabriel Caceres
represented SPS and the U.S. at the 2009 International Conference of Physics Students (ICPS), the annual conference of the
International Association of Physics Students. This year’s conference was the 24th in a row and
was held in Split, Croatia, August 10-18, 2009. It was organized entirely by the
Student Section of the Croatian Physical Society. ICPS truly is a conference for physics students
run by physics students.
Josh Fuchs | Gabriel Caceres | Photos | Program Info
My experience at the 2009 Meeting of the AAPT and AAAS
By Jenna Smith, Rhodes College
Thousands of attendees, hundreds of presenters, tens of speakers, two hotels, one city. This year’s AAPT (American Association of Physics Teachers) Winter meeting was held jointly with the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Winter Meeting in Chicago, IL. ... After workshops and field trips to Fermilab or the Museum of Science and Industry, former U.S. Vice-President and Nobel Peace Prize Recipient Al Gore gave a special invited address.
From the Rose Bowl to Gamma-Ray Bursts: The AAS 213th Meeting
By Therese Jones, Penn State
Both workshops I attended were International Year of Astronomy focused, and were free to attend. The first, focused on Hands-On Optics and the Galileoscope, involved a plethora of demonstrations using lenses, lasers, UV beads, and a black light. We each received a free kit containing these items and mini-telescopes, which our chapter has already used at an elementary school science day and while teaching middle school Science Olympiad students.
