United States

What is science?&amp;nbsp; What are the psychological, economic, and political factors that shape people&#39;s decisions about truth or fact?&amp;nbsp; Do truth, facts, or opinions guide science and technology policies?&amp;nbsp; These are the questions we address in a one credit seminar for first-year students.&amp;nbsp; The seminars were developed as part of Spelman College’s Big Questions Colloquia, and they cover many different areas. &amp;nbsp;In this seminar, students learn about how people reason and what science is. Eventually, students build skills to help them critique policies and differentiate between science and pseudoscience.&amp;nbsp; We explore controversial topics like big tobacco, and look at some conspiracy theories, such as the Apollo hoax. From the seminar, students gain experience critiquing, evaluating, and thinking about science and related policies.&amp;nbsp; I will present my experiences with developing the seminar, and some strategies for building an interdisciplinary approach to communicating about science.

AAPT WM 21

An Interdisciplinary Seminar on Knowledge, Science, and Policy

science

communication

knowledge

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AAPT SM 21

What is science?&nbsp; What are the psychological, economic, and political factors that shape people's decisions about truth or fact?&nbsp; Do truth, facts, or opinions guide science and technology policies?&nbsp; These are the questions we address in a one credit seminar for first-year students.&nbsp; The seminars were developed as part of Spelman College’s Big Questions Colloquia, and they cover many different areas. &nbsp;In this seminar, students learn about how people reason and what science is. Eventually, students build skills to help them critique policies and differentiate between science and pseudoscience.&nbsp; We explore controversial topics like big tobacco, and look at some conspiracy theories, such as the Apollo hoax. From the seminar, students gain experience critiquing, evaluating, and thinking about science and related policies.&nbsp; I will present my experiences with developing the seminar, and some strategies for building an interdisciplinary approach to communicating about science.

technical paper

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- share the results of research about teaching and learning.

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Galileo’s trial in 1633 was not the cultural myth of rational science versus irrational religion but rather a notable flashpoint in possibly the most significant cultural paradigm shift in western history.&nbsp; Galileo, colleagues and opponents clashed over metaphysics, epistemology, theology, tradition and even experimental science against a backdrop of armed conflict, religious battles, globalization, nationalism, economic change, information revolution and a reoccurring pandemic—not so different from today.&nbsp; In many respects the geocentric versus heliocentric battle was the premiere socio-scientific conflict which helped shape the emergence of modern science, making it a valuable and (no longer controversial!) case study to help better understand contemporary ones.&nbsp; This talk will describe a new course in which we first study Galileo to understand the nature of science and the many facets of socio-scientific conflicts— history, social identity, foundational assumptions, cognitive biases, conflict theory, rhetoric and argumentation—then apply that understanding to contemporary ones.

Studying the Past to Understand the Present

The air we breathe is constantly changing. The dynamic nature of outdoor and indoor air makes it interesting to measure. There are many natural opportunities in an intro electromagnetism course for students and professors to observe how quantities like carbon dioxide, methane, and particulate matter change over time. We will look at a few sensors that measure various gases and particles in the air. Then we will discuss ideas for integrating them into the intro physics classroom. Understanding what influences the air gives students an interest in the atmosphere around them and offers them a chance to change it with their actions.

The Physics of Healthy Air

The campus shutdowns due to the pandemic posed a serious challenge to labs, especially advanced labs. We offer a lab component to our upper-level quantum mechanics course based on photon labs. We adjusted by setting our labs to be remotely operated. We automated the labs using USB-based rotating or translating mounts, which moved optical components. Arduino-based circuits allowed remote control of the equipment (laser and detectors) and data acquisition. A webcam gave a view of the apparatus. A student connected to other group members by zoom logged into the lab computer via remote PC, and screen-shared the remote-desktop view. The PC controlled the apparatus via serial-port windows. An advantage was that we needed only one setup, and students could pick a convenient time to do the lab. The lab instructor was available online for consultation. It lacked a hands-on component, but exposed students to troubleshooting remotely.

Remote Photon Quantum Mechanics Labs

Prior to March 2020, few introductory undergraduate physics laboratories were offered in the distance-learning format.&nbsp; This work follows a Summer talk describing new lab curriculum and research study for the emergency remote teaching environment of Spring 2020. Using pre/post-instruction surveys and analysis of lab reports/assignments, we assessed the impact of the curriculum on students. Here, we describe students’ attitudes toward the simulation-based and project-based components of the course as compared to in-person labs they experienced, previously.&nbsp; We also show that students experienced a gain in self-efficacy and favored some aspects of the course over others. Additionally, we found students spent more time on the assignments than anticipated. Students reported engaging with design and modelling skills through the do-it-yourself project, though reports sometimes lacked coherent design methodology or uncertainty analysis.&nbsp; Finally, we share our post-mortem analysis of the course features that contributed to these outcomes and future plans for this curriculum.

Impact on Self-Efficacy, Lessons Learned from Emergency Remote Introductory Labs

Due to COVID-19, introductory physics lab courses were shifted to an online format. The online implementation of the labs involved a shift in emphasis in learning goals and involved a range of activities, including PhET simulations, video data collection, analysis of data sets, and open-ended free response conceptual questions. We contrast student perceptions of the online labs and learning outcomes for asynchronous and synchronous implementations.

Student Perceptions and Learning in Online Labs

Virtual reality (VR) physics labs that employ fictitious physical phenomena to provide students an opportunity for authentic physics model development are under development at the University of Washington. In these labs’ remote incarnation, one member of each group of 6-7 students attended in person to operate VR hardware. The in-person student collaborated with their group via video call. This hybrid format lent itself well to VR labs. An in-VR student communicates with their partners only by voice whether instruction is virtual or not; thus the remote adaptation of this approach made minimal functional difference in collaborative group dynamics. Our findings suggest that VR technology can enable robust student collaboration in remote experimental physics lab contexts. In this talk I will compare and contrast the student in-person VR lab experience to its virtual counterpart, and identify implications for the design of remote physics laboratory curriculum.

Collaboratively Developing Experimental Physics Skills in Hybrid Virtual Reality Labs

We physics teachers seek the latest education research findings, new curricular ideas, and inspiration to buoy our spirits and imagination.&nbsp; But we live busy lives; it is hard to find time for reading and researching new ideas.&nbsp; Meanwhile, podcasts are a rapidly growing form of media; not just for entertainment, but for learning about the world.&nbsp; What if there were a podcast dedicated to physics education?&nbsp; Now there is!&nbsp; Physics Alive is a podcast where I speak with teachers who employ innovative and active learning styles, researchers and textbook authors on the frontiers of physics education, life science and health professionals who use physics on an everyday basis, and students who want the most out of their education.&nbsp; In this talk I share major themes of the podcast and how I hope to disseminate excellent research.&nbsp; I also seek your input for making it better!&nbsp; Visit physicsalive.com

Physics Alive: Sharing Education Insights and Research through a Podcast

We review key lessons learned when taking our small group active learning classes online, both in synchronous and asynchronous modes. We considered engagement with the material, the instructor and with other students. Five key techniques emerged as being most important: Clarity, technology, opportunity, feedback, and flexibility. Since communication of course structure and expectations are always important, and because each campus relies on different Learning Management Systems, our talk will focus on different ways to provide engagement and ideas for both providing and receiving feedback. Once feedback is flowing, flexibility will allow you to adjust or review whatever is needed to keep your students on track and engaged.This is part of a series of talks stemming from the NextGen PET FOLC project. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation grant NSF DUE-1626496.

Keys to Keeping Students Engaged

The new Smart Cart Motor from PASCO scientific opens a wide variety of possibilities for the study of motion. It can be used to generate many novel motion profiles by responding to inputs from the attached Smart Cart. It can respond to inputs from any PASCO sensor using PASCO Capstone or SPARKvue's software's built-in Blockly programming. This unleashes student creativity to control motion based on temperature, light, sound, magnetic field, and the actions of another Smart Cart. Computational thinking in the classroom has never been so engaging and exciting. Several applications will be demonstrated during this talk and sample code and lab activities will be distributed. The Smart Cart Motor will become your new favorite PASCO scientific product!

The New Smart Cart Motor from PASCO scientific

Building strong undergraduate communities effectively is important to student success. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and current social distancing guidelines, colleges and universities have had to adapt many of their normal activities, such as classes and club gatherings, to virtual platforms.&nbsp; This may have students feeling more disconnected than normal, which has led the Society of Physics Students (SPS) to strategize building a sense of community within its members more now than ever.&nbsp; With increased social media presence, utilizing the SPS Discord channel, organizing virtual talks, and more, SPS has worked to interact with our students and members to promote community engagement virtually. Learn about the SPS virtual initiatives and how you can get involved or implement them in your own community.

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