Baton Rouge Magnet High Students Are Semifinalists for the U.S. Physics Olympics
- March 14, 2012
Two Baton Rouge Magnet High School students, Bob Liang and Scott Wu, have been named semifinalists for the 2012 U.S. Physics Olympics Team. They are enrolled in teacher Lai Cao’s Physics class and were named for the honor by the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT). The U.S. Physics Olympics Traveling Team will be participating this summer in the 2012 International Physics Olympiad in Estonia, which will be an expensive undertaking.
About 3,000 students participated in the first phase of the selection exam process in January. Those students together with their physics teachers are listed on the web at http://www.aapt.org/physicsteam/2012/index.cfm
. About 300 top scorers on this first test will advance to the Semifinal Round of competition.
A second exam is used as the basis for selection of the 20 members of the U.S. Physics Team. In May, these students will travel from schools all over the United States to the University of Maryland-College Park for the U.S. Physics Team Training Camp. There, they engage in nine days of intense studying, mystery lab, daily exams and problem solving. At the end of that training camp, five students and an alternate will be selected as the "Traveling Team" to represent the United States at the Olympiad. In July, the Traveling Team and their coaches will attend a three day mini camp of intense laboratory work before moving on to Estonia.
AAPT began the International Physics Olympiad program in 1986 to promote and demonstrate academic excellence. The International Physics Olympiad (IPHO) is a nine-day competition among pre-university students from more than 80 nations. The 2012 Olympiad will be held in Tartu, Estonia, July 15-24.
The US Physics Olympiad Program is a joint initiative of AAPT in partnership with the member societies of the American Institute for Physics (AIP): Acoustical Society of America, American Association of Physicists in Medicine, American Astronomical Society, American Crystallographic Society, American Geophysical Union, American Physical Society, AVS, Optical Society America, the Society of Rheology and the University of Maryland. Tax deductable donations for the team to travel to Estonia can be made at aapt.org/physicsteam/2012/donate.cfm.
Principal Brister in Washington, D.C., to Accept McKinley Middle School’s Second Blue Ribbon Award
On Tuesday, November 13, 2012, Principal Herman Brister (pictured, left) and the school’s Teacher of the Year, Lynn Williamson (right), were in Washington, D.C., accepting McKinley Middle Academic Magnet School’s National Blue Ribbon Award from U.S. Department of Education’s Director of National Blue Ribbon Schools Program Aba Kumi (center). The event, which recognized some 314 schools from across the United States, was held at the Omni Hotel. Click herefor story.
Subscribe to the EBRPSS eNews to receive our bi-weekly eNewsletter.
