2011 Medal Winners | francais

PRESS RELEASE / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The 2011 CAP Award for Excellence in Teaching High School/CEGEP Physics (Quebec and Nunavut)

is awarded to

Simon Langlois

"I am very grateful and honoured to receive this award of excellence from an institution as prestigious as the CAP. This recognition will certainly spur my motivation to design new teaching tools for my classroom." winner citation

The Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) is pleased to announce that the 2011 CAP Award for Excellence in Teaching High School/CEGEP Physics (Quebec and Nunavut) is awarded to Simon Langlois, Cégep Marie-Victorin (Montréal, QC), in recognition of his initiatives in scientific outreach at the high school level within Canada and beyond. In addition to being receiving the highest level of student evaluations possible in CEGEP Marie-Victorin, Simon is one of Canada's leading innovators in the student of scientific pedagogy and popularization. He has developed new programs in science education and popularization, and has made important contributions in understanding the relationship between student autonomy and development of laboratory skills. He has founded a scientific outreach centre in Burkina-Faso that will involve students teaching physics concepts in remote areas of Africa. The CAP is pleased to honour Simon for his contributions to scientific outreach and pedagogy. announcement

Mr. Simon Langlois has taught physics for the past 10 years, namely since he was 20 years old. His students describe him as someone who is passionate about science, someone who continually motivates them to push past their personal boundaries.

His teaching innovations began in his lab, where he designed new types of “open” experiments that allowed students to exercise their creativity and self-sufficiency, skills that were missing from traditional lab experiments.

His research at the Masters' level allowed him to obtain PAREA research funding to study student engagement in these open lab experiments.

In addition to his innovative research in the classroom, Mr. Langlois has promoted science internationally. He designed a new natural sciences specialization, entitled "Vers l’enseignement des sciences" [Teaching the Sciences], and now takes interested students abroad to carry out science presentations in a cultural context that differs greatly from their own.

This year, their science presentation project will take them to Burkina Faso, where they will begin building a science lab and start work on a computer network.

In short, Mr. Langlois is a personable, enthusiastic teacher who is passionate about science. His various accomplishments prove him to be a model for others in the profession. nominator citation

The CAP Award for Excellence in Teaching High School/CEGEP Physics, which is being introduced in 2010, is intended to recognize excellence in teaching physics in Canadian high schools or CEGEPs and to encourage and promote physics at the high school/CEGEP level in Canada. The award is sponsored by the CAP, TRIUMF, Merlan Scientific, Perimeter Institute, Nelson Education, and Vernier. medal description

The Canadian Association of Physicists, founded in 1945, is a professional association representing over 1600 individual physicists and physics students in Canada, the U.S. and overseas, as well as a number of Corporate, Institutional, and Departmental Members. In addition to its learned activities, the CAP also undertakes a number of activities intended to encourage students to pursue a career in physics. cap description

joint description

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For more information, please contact: Canadian Association of Physicists Tel: (613) 562-5614 Fax: (613) 562-5615 E-mail: cap@uottawa.ca