STEM Outreach

WPI offers a number of summer programs in the STEM disciplines for pre-collegiate students in grades 9-12. For more information, see Summer Programs at WPI

One of these programs is Frontiers, in which I taught the physics track from 1994-2019, a period of 25 years. I had about 10 students a year in the first decade, but after that the number steadily increased and finally got capped at 22 for space reasons. The students came from all over the US, but with the New England region being the clear winner, and they also came from about five to seven countries abroad (with South Korea being the winner in terms of being the furthest away). Quite a few of the students went on to major in a STEM field at WPI and many others did the same elsewhere. Teaching in Frontiers was both an exhilerating and rewarding experience for me -- I say exhilerating, because we always managed to do so much in just two weeks. In 2020 the program got canceled because of Covid and I decided then to hang up my socks and let my younger (and very competent) colleagues take over. I have many good memories and tons of pictures and memorabilia from over the years, but unfortunately not the time or energy to put them together in a coherent fashion and so will just present a random sample here. My fond greetings to any past students who happen to visit this site. Do write and tell me your stories, I am always happy to hear from you.

Below I list a number of resources that may be found useful by STEM educators at WPI and elsewhere (my list is slanted heavily towards physics and math, as these are the areas I know best).

First I'll mention a useful compilation by WPI:   K-12-STEM-Resources

Here are a number of websites that focus on physics activities, demonstrations and other useful material:

  • Digi Kits: hands-on inquiry-driven kits in basic science from AAPT
  • Hands-on physics activities for K-12 students (Institute of Physics)
  • 10 physics demos (Arbor Scientific)
  • Ten physics demonstrations (Expert TA)
  • 100 Amazing Physics Videos

    Here are a couple of websites that focus on math:

  • Mathematics for Kids   (A site maintained by Professor Bill Martin and his team at WPI)
  • Activities for K-12 students   (This site makes use of ASSISTments, pioneered by Professor Neil Heffernan of WPI)

    Finally, here are some articles/reports I have written to spread a greater awareness of STEM among
    high school and college teachers and students:

  • What fraction of a soccer ball is covered with pentagons?   (a math problem posed by a soccer ball)
  • Cutting a pizza into equal parts by cuts parallel to a diameter   (an activity for Pi day?)
  • A million sonnets   (poetry multiplied by math)
  • The Hypercubical Dance -- a solution to Abbott's problem in Flatland?   (math set to dance)
  • The N-bug problem   (contrasting Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries)
  • Sunsets, tall buildings and the Earth's radius   (standing on the shoulders of Eratosthenes)
  • The physics of the Space Elevator   (building a tower to heaven)
  • How spherical are the Archimedean solids and their duals?   (can you guess which is the roundest?)
  • Variations on a Sangaku problem invoving kissing spheres   (Japanese temple geometry)
  • Resistor Networks based on Symmetrical Polytopes   (calculating node-to-node resistances in symmetrical networks)