Physics of Dance Workshop
David Popalisky (Theatre and Dance) and Rich Barber (Physics) conducted a two-day teacher's workshop on the Physics of Dance in Panama City Florida 21-22 June, funded by Florida State University and organized by Ginger Littleton, FSU Panama City STEM Institute Director. The attendees were elementary through high school teachers and included a retired university college professor and a PhD student experienced in Chinese dance. The workshop content, based on David and Rich's Core Curriculum Science class taught at SCU, served teachers looking for ideas on how to enhance the science curriculum in their schools, hit hard by Hurricane Michael in October 2019. David led participants in horizontal and vertical accelerations and rotations, or runs, leaps, jumps and turns. Then Rich shared analysis of their graphed plots of these motions. Participants created and presented small group dances followed by insightful physical analysis of their movements, just like SCU students in the Physics of Dance class. Rich and David concluded their keynote speech on the Friday by unveiling their new Physics of Dance website designed to further share course content with teachers.
