Focus on Physics Competitions 2016

European Journal of Physics EDITORIAL Related content Focus on Physics Competitions 2016 To cite this article: Angela Fösel and Leopold Mathelitsch 2017 Eur. J. Phys. 38 030201 - Editorial Mayr Helmuth and Mathelitsch Leopold - Physics competitions H Jordens and L Mathelitsch - Physics competitions H Jordens and L Mathelitsch View the article online for updates and enhancements. This content was downloaded from IP address 207.241.231.80 on 23/07/2018 at 17:59 European Journal of Physics Eur. J. Phys. 38 (2017) 030201 (2pp) https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6404/aa6724 Editorial Focus on Physics Competitions 2016 It is the first time since the creation of this special section ‘Physics Competitions’ in 2009 [1] that five different competitions have been presented and outlined. This shows the lively activity of this field, but also its relevance regarding the support of talented students at all levels. Two articles, namely ‘The International Young Physicists’ Tournament’ [2] and ‘Ultrahydrophobic water’ [3] deal with a special form of physics competitions known as tournaments. Tournaments are competitions between teams, with their tasks having been made known to the teams several months prior to the competition. The challenge is not only to solve the tasks, but also to present the solutions in an adequate form and to defend them. The opposing team, however, tries to find possible weak points in the presentation and do their best to challenge the defending team. The presentation and the discussion take place in English. In this way, the students have to show several abilities: knowledge of physics, skills in presenting scientific facts in English, a quick understanding of an explanation, and the masterful control of a debate. Two versions of such tournaments exist: one for high school students, the International Young Physicists’ Tournament (IYPT) [4–6], and one for university students, the Physics Tournament (IPT) [7, 8]. This year, the 29th IYPT took place in Russia with a new record of 29 competing teams from all around the world. Therefore, we invited the president of the executing committee, Martin Plesch, to give an overview of this tournament. We also encouraged the vice world champions of 2016 from Germany (Carina Kanitz, Jonas Landgraf, Ann-Kathrin Raab, Fabian Eller, and Sören Selbach) to present their prize-winning solution. Unlike tournaments, olympiads are competitions between individual students. The participants have the chance and face the challenge of proving their knowledge and abilities in experimental and theoretical physics. Since physics is the central issue, the problems are presented and solved in the mother tongue of the competitors. Stefan Petersen (president of the German Physics Olympiad and co-organizer of the European Physics Olympiad), together with Peter Wulff, chose the example of the German Physics Olympiad [9] to introduce the main concept of this competition, to present a training program, to draw an international comparison (more than 80 countries participate in the IOP!), but also to point out unresolved issues like the underrepresentation of female students [10]. The Chain Experiment is a special, but already annual competition, which originated in Slovenia in 2005 and later expanded to Poland in 2013. We invited Daniel Dziob, Urszula Górska and Tomasz Kołodziej from the Jagiellonian University, Kraków, to give an overview of this as yet little-known competition and to show how the planning and realization challenge physics knowledge and engineering skills of the students [11]. Though primary school education is not within the scope of European Journal of Physics, we were tempted to make an exception for a Slovene science competition for primary school students aged between six and twelve years that is unique in its sense. Barbara Rovšek explains the competition, which is based on experiments, done well in advance either at school or at home [12]. What makes it exceptional is the large number of participants, and 0143-0807/17/030201+02$33.00 © 2017 European Physical Society Printed in the UK 1 Eur. J. Phys. 38 (2017) 030201 Editorial that the well-posed questions allow for an insightful evaluation of the understanding of the young competitors. Angela Fösel Department für Physik, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Didaktik der Physik, Staudtstraße 7, D-91058 Erlangen, Germany Leopold Mathelitsch Institut für Physik, Universität Graz, Universitätsplatz 5, A-8010 Graz, Austria E-mail: angela.foesel@fau.de and leopold.mathelitsch@uni-graz.at References [1] Jordens H and Mathelitsch L 2009 Physics competitions Eur. J. Phys. 30 101–4 [2] Plesch M, Eller F, Kanitz C, Landgraf J, Raab A and Selbach S 2017 The International Young Physicists’ Tournament Eur. J. Phys. 38 034001 [3] Landgraf J and Kanitz C 2017 Ultrahydrophobic water Eur. J. Phys. 38 034004 [4] http://iypt.org [5] Planinsic G 2009 IYPT problems as an efficient source of ideas for first-year project laboratory tasks Eur. J. Phys. 30 133–40 [6] Adams S 2003 The 16th International Young Physicists’ Tournament Phys. Educ. 26 371–7 [7] http://iptnet.info [8] Vanovskiy V 2014 International Physicists’ Tournament—the team competition in physics for university students Eur. J. Phys. 35 1–7 [9] http://wettbewerbe.ipn.uni-kiel.de/ipho/ [10] Petersen S and Wulff P 2017 The German Physics Olympiad—identifying and inspiring talents Eur. J. Phys. 38 034005 [11] Dziob D, Górska U and Kołodziej T 2017 Chain Experiment competition inspires learning of physics Eur. J. Phys. 38 034002 [12] Rovšek B 2017 Assessing learning outcomes from experiments in a science competition Eur. J. Phys. 38 034003 2