A few days ago I had a nightmare. In my dream I had to teach a physics class and I was not only unprepared, but I also couldn’t figure out how to interest the kids in the subject. As the class was in the state of a total mayhem, I spiraled into the state of […]

Yesterday I had an opportunity to view an amazing movie at an amazing place. The movie is called “Flight of the Butterflies” and the place is the IMax theatre at the Telus World of Science. I was invited to the preview as a member of the Scientists and Innovators in the Schools community – a […]

On March 9th, the Department of Physics and Astronomy and our department – Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy once again will co-host the Physics Olympics. It is a very special event that brings to UBC campus hundreds of grade 11-12 physics students, parents and teachers. This year we have a record number of participating teams […]

Today I received a very special e-mail from a very special woman – Susan Marie Frontczak. I would like to share it with you. Dear Marina Today I celebrated my birthday, and received many good wishes. Many encouraged me to celebrate and a good friend suggested that I “make it a day to remember.”  This preliminary […]

For the past three weeks I have been engaged in exploring different issues of mathematics and science teaching and learning with my teacher-candidates (pre-service mathematics and science teachers). Our group has 21 student-teachers. They chose a topic they wanted to research individually and then had to explore it in more depth and consequently present it […]

I have been teaching future mathematics and science secondary teachers for the past four months. This has been a very special opportunity for me. I had a privilege to spend time with people who all had graduated with science and mathematics B.Sc. degrees from our universities and who are motivated and inspired to teach the […]

Being a science teacher is not a job, to me it is a way of life… A few days ago I experienced a very interesting phenomenon – an air inversion – when the temperature on the ground in cooler than the temperature in the mountain. As a result, you might have clouds in the city […]

Winter 2013 meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers is taking place in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is always a wonderful event, but this year the list of speakers is just outstanding (AAPT WM 2013 program: http://www.aapt.org/Conferences/wm2013/ ). I am especially happy for the AAPT award winners this year. It is especially important to […]

This is an article from NPR – October 22, 2012. Believe it or not, but I am completely dumbfounded by this news. Is it 21st century Europe? What is going on there? I think the next step will be to burn those scientists at the stake… Oh wait, this has been done before…