American Association of Physics Teachers
founded 1930
The American Association of Physics Teachers is an organization dedicated to supporting teachers of physics. There are more than 10,000 members of AAPT from 30 different countries.
The AAPT was founded in 1930 by Paul E. Klopsteg, a physicist and physics teacher who earned his PhD from the University of Minnesota in 1916. Klopsteg, who was dissatisfied with the American Physical Society's neglect of educational issues, met with John O. Frayne, author of an April 1928 article "The Plight of College Physics", and Glen W. Warner, editor of School Science and Mathematics in 1928 or 1929 to compile a list of 115 potential members of a society of physics teachers. Thirty of these candidates were invited to a luncheon on December 29, 1930, during which the new organization's officers were chosen. During the next several days the group wrote a preliminary constitution for the AAPT, and arranged an Executive Committee meeting in April for the following year.
The AAPT's offices are in College Park, Maryland.
For more information on the society's founding, as well as on its current activities, see American Association of Physixs Teachers,
http://www.aapt.org/index.cfm (accessed 08/18/2014)