AAPT: American Association of Physics Teachers

Meet Alma

"Elbows Up! Elbows up!" My swim coach's voice echoed across the pool as our technique began to break down from exhaustion. "Oh yeah!" I thought. "That would reduce my arm's moment of inertia!" It was at that moment, surprised by my inner nerdiness, that I decided to become a physics major. Physics tapped into my curiosity in a way academics hadn't in a long time, and I couldn't help but see it everywhere around me. Before taking physics, I usually skimmed my textbooks to find the information I needed, but Paul Hewitt's Conceptual Physics was different. I read each chapter from start to finish and loved that his conceptual questions challenged my intuition and connected what I was learning in the classroom to my real-world experiences. When my friends started asking me for help with their physics homework, I discovered how fun and rewarding teaching physics could be.