Spring 2019 Idaho Utah Section report
The annual meeting of the Idaho-Utah Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers was held Friday/Saturday March 1-2 at the Utah State University campus in logan, Utah. The local organizer and current president was James Coburn, and the meeting was wonderful, and well-attended by college and high school teachers and students. A local sandwich shop catered dinner Friday evening, followed by the ever popular demo show, where several attendees showed off their favorite physics demos for a packed house in the science building lecture hall.
Saturday morning a light breakfast led to a morning session of talks and presentations, followed by a mid-morning snack and student poster session. A second session of contributed talks got us through to the luncheon and business meeting, where A spate of elections and announcements were on the agenda. The announcements included a reminder of all the programs and benefits available through AAPT and a reminder that the National Meeting will be held in our section in Provo this year, for the first time since 2005. Initial plans were made about garnering section help for the various responsibilities associated with hosting a national meeting. We also made plans for updating the mailing list and encouraging more younger faculty to be involved with the section. The business meeting elections resulted in Phil Matheson from Utah Valley University volunteering Dustin Shipp to be elected as president-elect and host the meeting in 2020. That means the current list of section officers stands as follows:
Past President: Matt Zachreson – BYUI
President: James Coburn – USU
Vice-President Elect: Daryl Macomb – BSU
President Elect: Dustin Shipp – UVU
Section Rep: Brian Pyper – BYUI
The section meeting next year will be hosted at BSU with Daryl Macomb as the local organizer, and two years from now it’ll be held in Orem at UVU with Dustin Shipp as the local organizer.
After lunch there were a few more talks and a handful of short workshops, and the day finished with a tone tube make-and-take organized by Chase Goddard from Box Elder High. A concurrent meeting of the SPS Zone was also popular and fairly well attended. James Coburn did a fine job with the meeting and everyone who came had a great time.