December 16, 1995

East Bay Physics Alliance: Year Summary and Thoughts on the Future
__________________________________________________________________

Summary
_______

A year ago, physics teachers and researchers were invited to a
conference in Santa Rosa hosted by the American Physical Society to
spawn Bay Area local physics alliances.

Successful alliances across the country serve as informal professional
societies where high school and college teachers from an area can
share ideas and have a good time together.  In previously spawned
alliances, it was found that college teachers and high school teachers
have a lot to learn from each other and that alliances can serve to
break the isolation of teachers who may be the only science teacher at
their school or college.

The Santa Rosa meeting last December provided the seeds for half a
dozen alliances to form around the Bay.  Of these, we have been in
contact with the North Bay Alliance (PION, for Physics In Our
Neighborhood) and the Peninsula Alliance.  In contrast with other
alliances, the East Bay attendance was dominated by research scientists.

The past year has involved the following activities:
	1) Initial APS meeting in Santa Rosa, December 3, 1994
	2) Show&Tell, Lab demonstrations, CSU Hayward, January 9, 1995
	3) Top quarks, Internet, 88" Cyclotron, Lawrence Berkeley Lab, March 23
	4) 3 Potlucks, Karen Street's house,  Berkeley, 1st Tuesday Oct/Nov/Dec
	5) Gathering to tour Berkeley Lab's Open House, October 28, 1995
These events have been a lot of fun and participants have learned a lot.

We have (1) a Web page http://design.lbl.gov/education/ (2) an email
list physics-alliance@lbl.gov (requests to physics-alliance-request@lbl.gov
or myself) and (3) a regular mailing list (maintained at CSU Hayward).
Most important emails are posted on the Web page, together with
education and physics resource links.  There is also an email archive.


Status
______

There is some interest in continuing the teacher potlucks every month,
having an evening at a high school every semester (perhaps to
investigate used and unused lab equipment), having an event at a
college and one at a national lab per year.

The participation from teachers has been spotty.  To realistically
keep this going we need to consistently see at least four high school
teachers per monthly meeting and at least fifteen high school teachers
per semesterly or yearly event.


Future
______

January 9 Monthly teachers' get together:
 Karen Street has kindly offered her house for a potluck on Tuesday January 9.
This is one more month than she agreed to, and will be the last for a while.
She will send a separate email to announce the meeting.

February and beyond teachers' get togethers:
 Montly meetings will need new hosts.  The events don't have to be
potlucks and they don't have to be on Tuesday nights.  For example,
the days and times may rotate, and/or we could call out for pizza instead.

February 3 PION event:
 We are likely to be invited to the next PION event, Saturday February 3.
They are meeting at Santa Rosa Junior College; topic is computer-based labs.

High School evening event:
 Need a host.

College /Lab yearly events:
 Given interest, such events may be held late Spring 1996 and during Fall 1996.


Getting involved
________________

Some ways to get involved:

 1. Recruit people, especially teachers, to come to events.
 2. Agree to host events or help host events.
 3. Email to the alliance (physics-alliance@lbl.gov) expressing your ideas.
 4. Learn more by visiting our web page, http://design.lbl.gov/education/

 5. Suggest teachers to join the email list (physics-alliance-request@lbl.gov).
 6. Suggest teachers to join the snail mail list (charper@csuhayward.edu).
 7. Help put together an announcement to be sent via snail mail.
 8. Help organize the web page.

 9. Contact Karen Street (kstreet@holonet.net) or myself (jfkral@lbl.gov).
10. Contact other members in the alliance.  To get a list of email
    addresses, send this email to the mailing list request service:
	To: physics-alliance-request@lbl.gov
	Subject: archive get dist

Looking forward to seeing you during the second year of the alliance.  
Happy holidays and happy new year!

				Regards,

				Fred

				JFKral@LBL.Gov 1-510-486-7435, Fax=5101
				J. Frederic Kral, The Berkeley Lab