Foundations and Frontiers of Physics Education Research: Puget Sound 2016

June 16, 2016 - June 19, 2016 in Diablo, Washington at the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center

The third Foundations and Frontiers of Physics Education Research: Puget Sound  (FFPERPS) conference was held June 16 - 19, 2016, at the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center, about 60 miles east of Burlington, WA.

FFPERPS is intended as a biannual conference that provides a venue for rich dialogue among physics education researchers in the Cascadia region and beyond. It is designed to enhance communication and collaboration and to increase the visibility of work that is of high quality but not well known. The conference provides a forum for examining and articulating the current state of the field, exploring future directions, and discussing ways to pursue promising avenues of research. The structure of the conference, based on that of the FFPER conference held in Bar Harbor, Maine, includes plenary talks, targeted sessions, contributed poster sessions, and substantial free time for informal interactions.

The 2016 conference featured plenary speakers engaged in a wide variety of exciting research and scholarship around the learning and teaching of physics, including: (plenary speaker biographies):

James Day, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia
Michael Loverude, Department of Physics, California State University, Fullerton
Mathew "Sandy" Martinuk, Cognition Technology
Cassandra Paul, Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Science Education Program, San Jose State University
Jennifer Richards, School of Education, University of Washington

In addition, the conference offered a series of targeted sessions/workshops:

• Suzanne Brahmia, Rutgers University (University of Washington),  "Supporting Students' Mathematical Sense-Making using Physics Invention Tasks"
• Abigail Daane, Seattle Pacific University, and Andrew Boudreaux, Western Washington University, "Exploring Issues of Equity in Physics Instruction"
• Krishna Chowdary, The Evergreen State College, "Integrated Inquiries into Interdisciplinary Instruction"

Questions?  Contact one of the conference organizers:

Krishna Chowdary, The Evergreen State College
Andrew Boudreaux, Western Washington University
Amy Robertson, Seattle Pacific University
Abigail Daane, Seattle Pacific University