Tarman+Summers

plus other cool science experiences

Uggg.....need to Update with pictures, etc

2016 - Mr. Tarman went along to California this year when I went to the Kavli Institute.

2015 - Invited to Kavli Institute again, 8 days in Kansas City scoring AP Physics Exams, 7 weeks at Baylor AGAIN - designing program to integrate Computer Programing into STEM classes, 1 week in training for Distributed Leadership Team. NO TIME FOR A VACATION :(

2014 - Invited to Kavli Institute again, 7 weeks at Baylor again --designing programs for huge grant to improve Waco Schools, cruise Western Carribean out of Ft Lauderdale. This is Mr. Tarman riding a Segwey in Mexico. I've riden one before, but this time I fell off & rode in the truck instead. LOL

2013 - Invited to Kavli Institute again, 7 weeks at Baylor again --optimizing microgravity capsule, cruise Western Carribean out of New Orleans It's not summer yet, but I was invited to the annual Teacher's Conference at the The Kavli Institute of Theoretical Physics!! They actually gave me travel funds to attend. It was Saturday Jan 14 in Santa Barbara, CA.

Nobel Prize winner Andrew Geim spoke about Graphene. VERY coooooool! It is a single atomic layer of carbon with some amazing properties! Google it! .....better yet ......major in Materials Science and dedicate your career to it. =)

I was one of 4 teachers in the country selected to participate in a summer research program at Baylor University! I spent 7 weeks there in Waco, Texas studying the containment of dusty plasma and developing curriculum for their "Physics Circus"

The vacation this year was to Fairbanks, Alaska. It was the 3rd time I've been to Alaska.

I was selected to score AP exams again, but College Board moved the physics reading up a week & YCSD wouldn't let me miss the last week of school. =( The federal appropriations committee cut funding for the ACTS program....so no 3rd summer at Princeton. =(

Mr. Tarman & I cruised the Western Caribbean out of Tampa. We waded/swam through an underground river in Mexico. Very cool. I attended a 1 week workshop about Nuclear Energy on the VCU campus in Richmond, VA

I was accepted into the Quarknet Program! As part of that I spent a week exploring particle physics at Johns Hopkins in August and built a muon detector to bring back to school!! There are only 2 other high schools in PA with them! We will upload data to the national data bank.

I had a sabbatical leave in the spring and spent 9 weeks on a research project at Tyco Electronics. I love being a scientist!

I was electrospinning polymer solutions to try to create a really thin film with an ultra low dielectric constant. Here I am about 8 hours into spinning. The white square is the mat I was making. I used 10,000 volts!.... but the current was VERY low.......so the few times I shocked myself weren't deadly. =) This is a picture of one of my samples that I took with an electron microscope.

Mr. Tarman & cruised the Hawaiian Islands in May My 3rd Summer scoring AP Physics Exams in Colorado! I visited Aspen a few days before reporting to duty. I spent 7 weeks at the Princeton Plasma Physics lab for my second summer of the ACTS program. As part of the program we flew on the Zero g flight!! See separate wiki page for that.

My 2nd Summer scoring AP Physics Exams in Colorado!

Mr. Tarman & I visited San Diego and cruised to Mexico. I rolled my ATV into a ditch on a shore excursion in Ensenada! SCARY!!!

I was selected for the ACTS Program!! It is a 3 year program funded by the DOE (Dept of Energy). Each summer I will spend 7 weeks at a National Lab and get grant money to attend conferences and get equipment!! I lived in the dorms at Princeton University and "worked" at the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab.

This is the first summer I was (one of 170 teachers & professors from across the country) selected to score AP Physics Exams! They flew us all to Colorado for 10 days to score exams. For 8 hours a day I scored the same problem! It was great insight into how exams are scored, I learned a lot from successful AP teachers, and vastly increased my network of physics teaching friends!

Mr. Tarman & I spent a week vacationing at St. Pete's Beach, FL. I spent 6 weeks at Cornell's Center for Materials Science in the RET Program (Research Experience for Teachers) This was an amazing opportunity to learn about Materials Science and use the incredible facilities at Cornell. I did X-ray diffraction, polymer characterization, mesoscale processing, and electron microscopy.