2023-2024 Zone Meetings

 

Hosting a Zone Meeting? Click Here!

Zone meetings bring together students from SPS chapters within geographical zones. They are a fun and effective way for undergraduates to meet other students, present their research, and interact with practicing scientists. Zone meetings in 2023 & 2024 will continue to serve these purposes. SPS National recommends that all zone meetings should be held according to national and local safety recommendations and guidance with respect to COVID-19.

If Zone Meetings will be held in-person:

• The Associate Zone Councilor and Zone Councilor don't need to host, but are asked to attend
• An SPS Chapter hosts part or all of the zone meeting; invite all chapters in your zone
• Decide whether to hold a standard zone meeting or a non-standard zone meeting (templates and examples below)

Resources provided by SPS National:

1. Apply for funding. Examples include: trivia prizes, competition awards, materials to be mailed to chapters
2. Request a speaker through the Alumni Engagement Program.
3. Ask for someone from SPS national to join the meeting or record a greeting: sps [at] aip.org
4. In case of any questions, just email sps [at] aip.org

 

Templates to choose from:

Research forward

 

Leadership building

 

Community focused (blended/hybrid)

If Zone Meetings will be held virtually (2022-23):

• The Associate Zone Councilor and Zone Councilor will chair the virtual zone meetings
• An SPS Chapter will continue to host part or all of the zone meeting
  • It is recommended that a chapter of which the AZC or ZC is not a member host each part of the meeting.
  • Ask SPS National for a zoom meeting with breakout rooms sps [at] aip.org

Resources provided by SPS National:

1. Apply for funding. Examples include: trivia prizes, competition awards, materials to be mailed to chapters
2. Request a speaker through the Alumni Engagement Program.
3. Ask for someone from SPS national to join the meeting or record a greeting: sps [at] aip.org

Resources to try out:

1. gather.town - you can make a virtual space to meet and chat with people - good for ice breakers
2. Miro.com - a place to make a virtual white board and sticky note space for many people - good for group work
3. SPS Virtual Lounge on Discord -  Plan out the zone meeting and connect to people

Template schedule:

6:00 – 6:10 PM  Welcome and opening remarks by AZC and ZC

                         -Share information about yourselves and how you can help

6:10 – 6:30 PM  Icebreaker games in small breakout rooms

•  We recommend that each room contain at most 6 people and be randomly assigned

6:30 – 7:00 PM  Plenary speaker from the Alumni Engagement Program

• 20-minute talk
• 10 minutes of questions
• Remind the speaker to share information about their personal career path

7:00 – 7:15 PM Small group puzzle

• Zoom room escape room, fermi problem, or some other task that is fun

7:15 – 8:00 PM Student Presentations – Pop talks

• Recommended: Each presenter has no more than 4 slides and 3 minutes to present
• Each presenter has 2 minutes of questions

8:00 – 8:10 PM  Break

8:10 – 8:30 PM  Group sharing of what chapters are doing to maintain community within their chapters

8:30 – 8:45 PM Virtual Laboratory Tour

• Share virtual tour of a national lab or observatory. Resources available here.

8:45 – 10:00 PM  Game night and/or and/or Demo competition

     Suggestions: Trivia, Pictionary, Jackbox games, or Physics Jeopardy

• Download Physics Jeopardy (good for teams)
• Free Pictionary-style game (good for small groups)
• Protip: Google forms can be set up as quizzes to automatically grade teams, like this (good for larger numbers of people)
• Universesandbox http://universesandbox.com/
• An example demo competition could look like this, with a voting form like this
  • Less than 60-second-long video
  • Provide a title slide for them to use
  • Themes are fun, such as everyone make a “Demos you can do at home”