About

=Physics + (Programming + Math) MEANS (great fun) + (deep personal significance)= toc

Announcement
Few areas of human expertise go hand in hand as tightly as math and physics. What can be better than coordinating Science Jim’s fun, experimental physics classes with Maria Droujkova's Natural Math approaches? How about tying the entire experience together with computer-based models that the students create!

Science Jim’s Physics Get your hands-on physics!

During this 10 week physics course we will deeply investigate the scientific method and the laws of Mechanics. This hands-on physics class is designed to give participants an internal and working knowledge of Newton’s Laws, force, momentum, gravity, friction and more. No text book required.

However, if you would be interested in doing work at home that relates to the classes I have written an accompanying text called Bite-Size Physics.

Feel free to take a look at []

Maria Droujkova’s [|Natural Math] Modeling will help strengthen the concepts, and introduce math in natural, intuitive ways as students work on their software. Moreover, they will develop the "21st century skills" of programming literacy, collaborative projects, social media and web 2.0. We will start with Scratch, an accessible, easy and fun programming environment developed at MIT. We will look at GeoGebra, a specialized tool for geometry and algebra work, as an example of a more targeted development environment. We will make applets in Python, a powerful and accessible programming language that is used professionally. We will also use a variety of tools for communication, visual representation of models, and other daily needs of a modern project.

The classes will run on Monday afternoons 1-3pm, starting on September 14th, in North Cary and will take 2.5 hours including a break. Each class will include a physics as well as a math session.

The participants will be separated into two groups. You can choose one of the two available groups. One will be roughly at Pre-algebra and Algebra I level, and the other at Algebra II level. There are 10 meetings in a course, at a cost of $240 for the 10 week course.

[[image:Jim-Mueller.jpg width="87" height="119" align="left"]]About Jim Mueller
Jim has a belief that there are several essential concepts which are the foundation to understanding all the sciences.

I have found some of what I believe, to be core understandings and skills for better understanding the world around us and this is what I intend to give the participants in my classes. A few of these "essentials" are observation, problem solving, creative thinking, thermodynamics, and Newtonian motion. For me, the heart of science and the reason I do science education, is to encourage and enable a sense of wonder. Science gives us the skills to observe things around us, ask questions (wonder) about that which we see, and then logically pursue those questions. It is my goal to increase those skills for all the children that I teach.

Contact Jim
Phone (919) 929-9791 Email jim at sciencejim dot com Site [] Facebook []

[[image:MariaD2_2009-100by100.jpg align="left"]]About Dr. Maria Droujkova
Maria's global goal is to create and support multiple communities of practice for adults and children who work on meaningful mathematics. Her local goals involve research and development of Math Clubs, courses, internet communities and workshops combining strong traditions and promising innovations in mathematics education. Maria has experiences with teaching and design for universities, private and public school systems, virtual schools, and homeschool communities. Her research is published and presented nationally and internationally.

Contact Maria
Phone (919) 388-1721 Email maria at naturalmath dot com Site [] Twitter [] Skype maria_droujkova