Additional Resources

Similar to your university classes, PY25 will have a Teaching Fellow.  This year, the teaching fellow is Ms. Hickman, a BUA alum.  She will run some of the classes and labs.  Ms. Hickman will also be available at times during Academic block for extra help.  She will also do a lot of the grading of assignments.

There are several sources of extra help: Your TF, myself during Academic Block, Peer Tutors, Professional Tutors, and discussion on InterLACE and the Great Hall

The House Cup Race:  The sections of Physics are named Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin.  This is a friendly competition to show the most enthusiasm for physics.  Points are rewarded for interesting posts to the great hall, great insights in class, great performances, great displays of enthusiasm (including holiday décor), and good citizenship.  Points are taken away for rude behavior towards others (within your own house and towards others), risky behavior in the laboratory, and generally bad attitudes.

FIRST CLASS: Class conference: major announcements, homework syllabi (posted several weeks at a time) It is recommended that students print out homework syllabi so they have quick access to assignments.

Discussion conference: For discussion within an individual house/section of physics.

Physics Great Hall: A common discussion conference for all four sections of physics. To discuss homework questions, ideas in physics, the reading assignments or pre-lectures, labs, and demonstrations.  Monitored by older students to give appropriate feedback and mentoring.

Drop box:  All papers and lab reports are submitted electronically and sent to the physics drop box as an attached file.  Feedback on papers is returned to the student electronically.

Documents conference: Important files and class notes are posted regularly.

Physics Great Hall: How to post for HW help.  When asking for help in the Physics Great Hall on a particular homework problem, you should precede this with the following codes:

IL:AssignmentName:Question #            Such as IL:Day 1 Introduction to Kinematics:1

WB:Chapter#:Ex#                                                            Such as WB:Chapter3:Ex5

WebAssign:AssignmentName:Question#                        Such as WebAssign:Galileo:#4

Extra Credit:  There are only a few opportunities for extra credit, and your best efforts are spent on mastering the work at hand.  The DuPont Challenge and AAPT Photo Contest are the two standard opportunities.

Science Team: For those of you who cannot satisfy your quest for scientific knowledge within the confines of our classroom, I encourage you to join the Science Team.  The Science Team competes monthly in various competitions around Massachusetts.  Some events are Quiz Bowls, some are laboratory based events, and sometime you must build apparatus in advance such as balsa wood bridges, windmills, or thermoses. Topics range from the standards of biology, chemistry, and physics, to geology, paleontology, astronomy, criminal science investigations, and physiology.  If you want to have fun with science, join this award winning team!

Robotics Team: For those of you interested in engineering, computer science, entrepreneurship, graphic design, and video production, you should check out the engineering team. Although the main focus is building a 5’ tall, 130 pound robot in out state of the art facility in the College of Engineering, we build small robots, interactive with the community, mentor younger students, and have created a well respected award winning team. We engage in some non-robots projects such as developing engineering projects for Engineers Without Borders and for NASA.

Science Research: When you are older, you will have the opportunity to engage in cutting edge research at the University itself.  The path to this is taking a class in 11th grade called the Junior Science Seminar.  Every summer, about a dozen BUA students are trained in this Seminar to spend their summer working in the laboratories at BU or nearby research institutions.