Bendy rods, glass pebbles, glue, tape and all kinds of inexpensive dollar store items.
This is the stuff of modern-day science classroom teaching, which has become a lot more hands-on, even during the past decade that Hannah Rud has been a teacher.
“There has been a lot more movement towards more critical thinking rather than just memorization and regurgitation of facts,” she says. “It's more about learning how to fit pieces of the puzzle together, and that is more engaging than just being thrown information.”
Rud teaches at Nose Creek School in Calgary, which has over 900 students in grades six to nine. She was one of 38 participants from around the world who were at Perimeter Institute in early July for the week-long EinsteinPlus workshop.
The impact of the annual teacher training in modern physics is exponential. Each year, many of the teachers who participate help to train teachers in their own regions, and each of those teachers has an impact on the young people in their classrooms, resulting in intensified waves of inspiration and excitement for physics.
The program is possible thanks to Power Corporation Canada, which has generously supported Perimeter’s educational outreach programs since 2019.
Rud says that, prior to EinsteinPlus, she had already used one of the free teacher resources that Perimeter provides — the one on exoplanets — and she appreciated how well that breakout activity dovetailed with the curriculum for Grade 8 and 9 students.
“Sometimes the escape room activities targeted to teachers will have escape room components but will be far apart from the curriculum components. But what Perimeter Institute put out was very connected and cohesive,” she says. She decided to attend EinsteinPlus this year to learn more about other resources that Perimeter offers, and how best to use them.
Rud says the most important aspect in engaging her students is her own excitement for the subject matter.
“The students feed off of what I get excited about, and so, for me, the enthusiasm and the discussions, being able to make analogies and connections, which is what fuels the interest and the curiosity,” she says.
The teachers came from 11 countries this year, and they learned from one another — how schools in different parts of the world handle the curriculum. The teachers improve their own classrooms by taking lessons in teaching from other places.
Sharon Polomares, for example, is a science teacher at a Philippine high school that is designed as an advanced Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) school for young people who want to pursue careers in science and technology.
The students at her school pass a competitive exam to get a spot and must maintain a certain grade average to stay. That naturally means her students are extremely interested in science. It also means that Polomares must constantly upgrade her own knowledge of modern physics. She then designs a curriculum to keep the students engaged and up to date with the latest science.
She said she participated in the CERN International Teacher Week workshops in the past, and this year, she came to EinsteinPlus. “Even though I have been teaching for 20 years, I still have a lot to learn because every generation that I am teaching is changing," she says.
Mirwat Shamshad, who teaches physics at a high school in Islamabad, Pakistan, is always searching for new ways to engage her students in science. Not just so they learn science, but to better prepare them to be global citizens in the world of the future.
“It leads to more project-based learning,” she says of the training. “We want to transform the traditional classroom into more student-centred classrooms, and the strategies we learn here are a great experience,” she says.
A worldwide network of educators
Tonia Williams, senior manager in educational outreach at Perimeter Institute, says the teacher networking is one of the best parts of what EinsteinPlus offers.
“It’s the community they are building, the people they get to meet, and the amazing facilitators they will continue to work with as they bring the training back into their teaching practice,” she says. “They are getting advice from one another, hearing from other teachers who are doing the same thing.”
Every year, EinsteinPlus lines up great facilitators who are themselves teachers and who help bring the workshops to life, so that the teachers can get as much as possible from the activities.
The teachers were awed just by being in the Perimeter Institute building environment, and meeting with physicists who give keynote talks in between the workshop sessions.
This year, they heard from Freddy Cachazo, a faculty member who works in mathematical physics and quantum fields and strings; Katie Mack, the Hawking Chair in Cosmology and Science Communication, and author of The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking); and Gideon Koekoek, an expert in the gravitational waves and fundamental physics research group from Maastricht University in Netherlands.
“They get to talk to the researchers, ask questions and pick their brains, and that’s an inspiring part of it too,” Williams said.
“They get to be a student as well as a teacher, and learn for themselves,” she added.
EinsteinPlus is made possible through the generous support of Power Corporation Canada, whose ongoing investment in Perimeter Institute's educational outreach programs helps bring modern physics to teachers and students around the world.
About PI
Perimeter Institute is the world’s largest research hub devoted to theoretical physics. The independent Institute was founded in 1999 to foster breakthroughs in the fundamental understanding of our universe, from the smallest particles to the entire cosmos. Research at Perimeter is motivated by the understanding that fundamental science advances human knowledge and catalyzes innovation, and that today’s theoretical physics is tomorrow’s technology. Located in the Region of Waterloo, the not-for-profit Institute is a unique public-private endeavour, including the Governments of Ontario and Canada, that enables cutting-edge research, trains the next generation of scientific pioneers, and shares the power of physics through award-winning educational outreach and public engagement.
