41st UBC Physics Olympics
For the past half a year, my colleagues from the Department of Physics and Astronomy and I have been working together on organizing the 41st UBC Physics Olympics. This is an annual event that has become a tradition. It is also a unique opportunity to bring together physics teachers from all over British Columbia. I am proud to say that some of the physics teachers who bring their teams are my former students. This year, we are expecting 73 teams of students from all over British Columbia. This means that we will have more than 600 students from British Columbia (most of them are grade 11-12 students) who will come as teams to compete in hands-on events. This is a very unique event and only a collaboration of many faculty members, staff, graduate and undergraduate student volunteers can make it possible. We are also expecting guests and visitors. In addition, we are organizing a professional development event for physics teachers, who are accompanying their teams. This year we are going to discuss the challenges of the new British Columbia science curriculum. We hope it is going to be an exciting event. This is one of the traditions on UBC campus, I am very proud to be a part of. I am looking forward to it.