Hi everyone. My name is James Rittner. I am a high school physics teacher at Baltimore Polytechnic in Baltimore. As a teacher I am hoping to find effective ways to connect teaching about climate change to physics concepts/topics so that it can provide a highly relevant way to reinforce student learning. As a human being on this planet and a father of two young boys, I'm actively concerned about climate change and its impact on our future. I want to educate myself as much as possible and hopefully find ways to empower our young people to support (or discover!) sensible solutions and interventions.
Welcome James! I’m excited that you‘ll be bringing both your physics perspective AND your parental perspective to this course. Looking forward to getting to know you this summer!
Hello James, and welcome! Your message is thoughtful and relevant. I think we should be able to help you identify some great applications for physics topics in the broad field of climate change. Climate change is also a great context for activities related to energy efficiency and renewable energy, and many students are eager to dive into those topics.
I look forward to meeting you in June!
Pat
Hi James,
As I was reading your post, I was thinking about the physics program at my school (Kent Island High School) and how they are using some Vernier labs such as building model wind turbines and testing the efficiency of the blades if they vary in shape and size. Not sure if you are interested in that but it seems really cool and would tie in nicely with incorporating climate and alternative energy sources into your physics classes. In terms of Vernier (not sure if you have heard of it before or not), it is a company that specializes in making student friendly probe ware and data collection programs to help students engage in real life scientific tools and data analysis. The company also has lab manuals that you can purchase that incorporate the probe ware and in which the labs are easy to follow for students yet, are still challenging and rigorous. Here is the link if you are interested in learning more https://www.vernier.com/. Feel free to ask questions :)
We do use Vernier and trying to get more authentic engineering challenges into the classroom is always a goal. I am fortunate to teach at a school (Poly) whose motto is "Uniting Theory and Practice" and which has both a science and an engineering department. I know that they have tackled the wind turbine project over in the engineering department but I would love to hear more about it.
Hi James. Thank you for taking the time to be apart of this experience. I love to see teachers try to find new ways to better their craft. Plus teaching our youth about this important topic.
Hi James!
I look forward to meeting you. My daughter will be a senior at Poly!!
Greetings James!
I think it will be interesting to connect the sciences to discover how one could affect the other. I also have two young gentlemen that are very interested in the environment. With the various weather conditions in PG County, we have lively discussions about the differences of the seasons from when I was young up to now.
I look forward to working with you.