Great workshops at Greensboro

I’m settled in the dorms, and have been sharing with a nice guy from outside Ann Arbor (“NOT” UM, our colors are green). He’s checking out tonight, so I’ll have the room to myself tonight.

Sunday I spent the morning in two workshops, the first on using VPython (a computer programming language) to have students create models of physical actions (e.g. a ball rolling up a ramp). The program is pretty cool because students don’t to learn much programming, but instead focus on the physics equations. The second was on energy planning, and it uses spreadsheets to look at energy planning. Students make decisions about how much they should increase or decrease different energy sources (e.g. petroleum, coal, nuclear, solar), then examine the consequences of their choices in terms of per capita energy consumption.

I’m off to a meeting now, but I’ll write more later tonight.