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The traditional introductory physics course doesn’t work for life-science students. Life-science students don&#39;t find kinematics or Newton’s laws to be relevant to their interests. That, combined with the well-known conceptual problems associated with describing motion mathematically, suggests the need for a new starting point for the Introductory Physics for Life Sciences (IPLS) course. This presentation outlines a new pedagogical approach for life-science students. It starts with the “marble game,” which simulates diffusion – a topic students already know is fundamental to biology. Modeling techniques introduced with the marble game are then applied to drug elimination; radioactive decay; osmosis; the Boltzmann factor; ligand binding; thermodynamics, phase equilibrium and entropy; membrane voltage, RC circuits and the action potential; models of COVID-19; and yes, even Newtonian mechanics. I’ve been successfully using this approach with IPLS students for over 5 years. See http://circle4.com/biophysics for free textbook chapters and instructional videos.

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IPLS – the physics that life-science students want and need

computational

finite difference

biochemistry

molecular biology

biophysics

ipls

physiology

This meeting is a great opportunity to explore sessions and workshops designed with your professional development in mind. Present your research and exchange ideas on the latest in teaching and pedagogy. Participate in a wide range of events, activities, plenaries, and so much more, connecting you with peers and colleagues who share your commitment to excellence in physics education.

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The traditional introductory physics course doesn’t work for life-science students. Life-science students don't find kinematics or Newton’s laws to be relevant to their interests. That, combined with the well-known conceptual problems associated with describing motion mathematically, suggests the need for a new starting point for the Introductory Physics for Life Sciences (IPLS) course. This presentation outlines a new pedagogical approach for life-science students. It starts with the “marble game,” which simulates diffusion – a topic students already know is fundamental to biology. Modeling techniques introduced with the marble game are then applied to drug elimination; radioactive decay; osmosis; the Boltzmann factor; ligand binding; thermodynamics, phase equilibrium and entropy; membrane voltage, RC circuits and the action potential; models of COVID-19; and yes, even Newtonian mechanics. I’ve been successfully using this approach with IPLS students for over 5 years. See http://circle4.com/biophysics for free textbook chapters and instructional videos.

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An important learning goal for IPLS students is to have them see physics as a way of learning reasoning rather than facts. Unfortunately, many students expect the latter and resist the former. The most critical step is to shift them away from "answer making" to "sense making." A good way is to elicit a mistake, confront it, and scaffold a resolution.[1] But if students see mistakes as shameful instead of an opportunity to learn, this approach can result in strong negative reactions. I frame the class as "reasoning not answers" on the first day by teaching basic psychological principles of memory and decision making [2] using common surprising illusions. I introduce mantras that we use throughout including [3]: "one-step thinking", "missing the gorilla", and "debugging your thinking." These help students begin to see errors as valuable learning tools instead of as an embarrassment and to engage with sense-making.

Why I teach Psychology on IPLS day 1

Transforming an introductory physics class to meet the needs of life science majors is no easy task.&nbsp; It requires curiosity, humility, dedication, and a willingness to be a novice learner again.&nbsp; Honestly, it may not be for everyone.&nbsp; But for those educators who are willing and able to undergo this reform, the rewards of a deep connection with life science students and pre-health professionals are immensely satisfying.&nbsp; In this talk I highlight my experiences reforming the introductory class at a former university, the resources and educators who were most influential, and the early stages of my quest to bring an IPLS class to my current college.&nbsp; Finally, I share a new podcast that I just released called Physics Alive*, where I interview PER and IPLS instructors and researchers.&nbsp; This podcast provides an opportunity for listeners to discover new ideas and even use episodes in their classrooms. *https://physicsalive.com/

Back to School: Physicists Learning the Life Sciences for IPLS

One challenge when&nbsp;teaching physics to life science students is that they do not see the connections between physics and their other coursework.. Additionally, some teachers of introductory physics believe that PER-based tools such as motion maps and energy graphs are not used&nbsp;aside of physics class and so they focus on&nbsp;algebraic problem-solving algorithms. I have found that including work from recent experimental biology in introductory physics courses can both provide relevance to bio-focused students and show physics faculty colleagues that the multiple representations used by PER informed textbook authors are used actively and effectively in current biological and biomedical contexts. Several examples from applications as diverse as bio-mechanical engineering, ethology, and molecular biology will be discussed to highlight where to look for good examples and how to incorporate such materials in introductory courses.

Mining Biological Research when Developing Curricular Materials for Introductory Physics

In the online environment, we are encouraged to find ways to assess student progress that are resistant to online cheating, and also provide an especially &nbsp;supportive environment for learning in these challenging times. &nbsp;&nbsp;Our first semester IPLS course, serving a pre-PT and exercise science population, &nbsp;focuses heavily on biomechanics.&nbsp;&nbsp; After digital practice with provided biomechanics scenarios, focusing on different aspects every week, students work on those aspects in scenarios of their own.&nbsp;&nbsp; These weekly scenario digital submissions are submitted as drafts and feedback is given in screencasts going over their work.&nbsp;&nbsp; The subsequent revisions are what is assessed for competence in the learning outcomes of the course

Students own biomechanics scenarios with digital practice and screencast feedback

Bringing computational thinking into the science classroom is more important than ever. Here we look at a series of web-based astronomy lab activities that use modern computing and data science paradigms to process authentic datasets that ask students to investigate underlying phenomena using inquiry and exploration. These activities work when students are learning face to face or when doing remote learning. Google CoLab means access to a high-quality Python programming environment that allows for collaboration between students while eliminating the daunting learning curve associated with setting up a programming environment. Modern data science techniques for analysis and visualization appear throughout the activities where appropriate.

Web-based Astronomy Coding Labs

Most of the exoplanets discovered by the&nbsp; Kepler &nbsp;mission were detected by the&nbsp; transit method , which gives the radius of the planet. Use of the&nbsp; radial velocity&nbsp; or&nbsp; Doppler-detection &nbsp; method &nbsp;gave us the mass for a number of these planets which allows their densities to be determined.&nbsp;&nbsp;Comparison of these densities to the densities of the planets considered to be of similar type based on radii in our own solar system shows that some exoplanets of similar size to low-density “ ice-giants ,” like Uranus or Neptune , have greater densities more like the smaller , rock-metal&nbsp; terrestrial &nbsp;or Earth-like planets of our solar system and that the reverse is true; that some smaller, more Earth-sized , exoplanets have lower-densities more similar to the larger ice and gas giants in our solar system.&nbsp;

Densities of Extra Solar Planets

An astronaut floating at rest in Skylab and a hurricane floating over a very smooth ocean are similar. The astronaut can suddenly rotate arms, but torso also moves and total angular momentum stays zero. The hurricane can begin spinning, but it also orbits in the opposite direction and total angular momentum stays zero. It is wrong to think that a hurricane has only spin angular momentum. It is also wrong to think that they are blown west by trade winds. They move west because the earth is a sphere and the Coriolis force is proportional to the sine of the lattitude angle. This, and Bernoulli's principle makes them also move poleward, again because the earth is a sphere. The existence and motion of hurricanes demonstrates that the earth spins and is spherical. Application of what we know about the formation and motion of hurricanes, applied&nbsp;to sunspots yields new insight.

Angular Momentum of Astronauts, Hurricanes, and Sunspots

Learn about 19 different physics activities embedded into an astronomy context developed by the Temple/AAPT team of the NASA Space Science Education Consortium. Many of these materials can be incorporated into an online learning environment. Activities cover topics as wide-reaching as spectroscopy and the likelihood of identifying life in outer space, periodic relationships and solar activity, electromagnetism and auroral currents, motion graphs and coronal mass ejections, and geometric optics and solar eclipses.

Physics in an Astronomy Context: Resources from the NASA SSEC

Filling an important niche in the discipline-based science education research domain, the Journal of Astronomy &amp; Earth Sciences Education JAESE is entering its 8 th year.&nbsp; Initially started to fill the gap left by the termination of the Astronomy Education Review j ournal, JAESE publishes education-based research studies across the broad field of Earth, &nbsp;space, and planetary sciences including the disciplines of astronomy, climate education, energy resource science, environmental science, geology, geography, agriculture, meteorology, planetary sciences, and oceanography education. JAESE uses a double, blind-peer review process to insure the scholarly quality of the astronomy education research studies published.&nbsp; Moreover, JAESE uses an open-access financial model where nominal open-access costs are charged to authors and institutions rather than annual memberships, large library subscriptions, or expensive “gold” open-access fees.

Evolution of the Journal of Astronomy & Earth Sciences Education

For the past few years, the fall semester algebra-based introductory physics labs have been teaching skills alongside content. We instruct students on how to create models and how to use those models to answer experimental questions. When a student is presented with an experimental question, they are given minimal assistance and must design their own experiment based on prior knowledge. For our lab on buoyancy, we introduce the topic in lab first before going into more detail in the lecture. The end goal is for students to discover that the buoyant force is equal to the weight of the water displaced. Students then analyze the results of their experiment and compare class data using a t-test, another learned skill.. We present this discovery lab to give others ideas for new labs that can be done in courses involving physics for the life sciences.

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IPLS – the physics that life-science students want and need

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