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As a capstone project in an upper-level undergraduate classical mechanics course, students were asked to choose a nonlinear system and create a computational model to investigate conditions under which the system might exhibit chaotic behavior. I&#39;ll discuss some of the systems that students could choose to investigate, describe the steps in their modeling process, and show a few examples of the presentations students created. Their computational models could easily be adapted into apparatus simulations for the purposes of taking and analyzing data.

AAPT SM 22

Exploring Chaos by Creating Simulations of Nonlinear Systems

AAPT meetings are a great way to reflect on your teaching, recommit to best practices and re-energize your career with new research, products, and techniques. Listen to internationally known plenary speakers, attend sessions, workshops, and special activities. This meeting is an excellent opportunity to share your expertise and learn from and network with leaders in the field.



As a capstone project in an upper-level undergraduate classical mechanics course, students were asked to choose a nonlinear system and create a computational model to investigate conditions under which the system might exhibit chaotic behavior. I'll discuss some of the systems that students could choose to investigate, describe the steps in their modeling process, and show a few examples of the presentations students created. Their computational models could easily be adapted into apparatus simulations for the purposes of taking and analyzing data.

technical paper

During the chaotic transition to remote labs we developed a ‘chaotic pendulum’ lab for remote students for our oscillations and waves class. This involved students building their own double pendulum at home, recording its oscillations, and analyzing those movements. The first time we ran it, it did not work. We have since then iterated upon that initial design, and are happy to present something that is suitable for advanced, experimentally motivated remote students using resources commonly available at home and the free video analysis software Tracker.

Student Built Remote Chaotic Pendulums

A rationale for requiring undergraduate students to take natural science classes as part of their general education is to promote critical thinking skills and scientific literacy. Belief in pseudoscientific, paranormal, and conspiracy theory claims could be indicative of weaker scientific literacy and critical thinking skills. Thus, uncovering to what degree students subscribe to such beliefs can serve as a diagnostic test of the effectiveness of natural science classes in promoting scientific literacy and critical thinking skills. As a preliminary step in exploring this question, we measured how students enrolled in several introductory level physics and astronomy classes respond to pseudoscientific, paranormal, and conspiracy theory claims, as well as genuine scientific claims at the end of a semester of instruction by administering survey questions from the \textit{Inventory of Epistemically Unwarranted Beliefs} (Dyer \& Hall, 2018). We compare the persistence of these beliefs across classes and to prior results in the literature

Exploring Pseudoscientific Beliefs Among Undergraduate Students

At Western Kentucky University, the students in the introductory acoustics course are about one-third music majors, one-third communication disorders majors, and one-third from other disciplines. Such a diverse group provides an excellent opportunity for collaborative learning. Students from different disciplines are grouped together to build an instrument using common household materials. The instrument must be able to play a simple tune. The students showcase their instruments and explain how they work using the physics of vibration, resonance, pitches, and tone colors. In this talk, I will discuss how these projects engage students, and I will present some of the instruments that the students have made.

Instrument Projects for Acoustics Students Who Are Non-Science Majors

As part of a computational thinking practices survey development process, five secondary educators with experience integrating computation into their physics classrooms were given a fourteen-practice computational thinking framework to reflect on and discuss. The computational thinking framework was presented to the teachers via a 54-question survey which they completed and then discussed in detail. This survey gathered data on which practices were the most important to these teachers, why each teacher felt the practices they chose were the most important, and how the practices were explicitly incorporated into their classroom. Our analysis of this survey shows that there are certain patterns across the educator’s interpretation of these practices, as well as overlapping thoughts on the importance of computational thinking in the classroom. This initial data set will be used to iterate on the design of the survey and highlights variation in teachers’ priorities related to computational thinking practices.

Evaluating Patterns Across Educators in their Reflection of Computational Thinking

The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams and Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics organize and conduct a host of different outreach programs, all geared to different audiences and goals. Discover the abundance of free resources available to students & teachers, kids & adults in Michigan and anywhere in the world!

Nuclear Science for Everyone

The Michigan State University Department of Physics and Astronomy had the honor of receiving the Improving Undergraduate Physics Education Award this past December. This talk will discuss our efforts and challenges in improving the educational experience for undergraduates, including faculty buy-in, science practices in introductory courses for engineering majors and life science majors, and the integration of computation across the physics curriculum.

Undergraduate Physics Transformations at Michigan State University

Social media is an amalgamation of memes, brunch pictures, personal updates, dance trends—and science? As a communication tool, social media allows scientists to reach audiences where they already are. Seeing scientists in their feed can break stereotypes, introduce new ideas, or ignite lifelong passions for science. Effective science communication via social media can not only educate but also entertain and inspire.

SciTok, Social Media, and Seeing Science

Social media as we know it now has been around for about 18 years. Because social media platforms make it so easy to broadcast information widely and interact with people having common interests online, vibrant communities of physics instructors have arisen and can be a great way to exchange ideas about all aspects of teaching physics. As a means of broadcasting information and interacting with people online that is nearly two decades old, it would be easy to think that social media is a mature technology by now. I will discuss my observations of using various social media platforms over the span of 14 years and try to speculate about what the next 14 year of social media use might look like.

Your Next Great Teaching Idea Is Just A Tweet Away!

Tik Tok has become one of the most popular and influential social media platforms, its content ranges from simple reaction videos to professionally crafted masterpieces, but it lacks in one area; in science education. With the ability to easily reach out to millions of people, it is difficult to ignore the potential that the social media platform offers to get the public more interested in science. By creating short, entertaining and easy to understand videos on physics concepts, my colleagues and I were able to amass over 330,000 followers on Tik Tok. This resulted in a closer relationship with our students, a larger sense of school pride, and an increase interest from the general public to attend our university. Planning, recording, and editing these videos are no easy tasks as one also needs a decent understanding of how Tik Tok's algorithm functions, but it is worth the extra effort.

Physics and Social media: Everyone's Tok'ing About It

Why do physics graduate students leave their programs? Previous studies report that nearly 40% of physics graduate students do not complete their Ph.D. programs. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 54 graduate students from 23 institutions and asked why physics and astronomy graduate students discontinue their graduate studies. Graduate students cited a variety of cultural and systemic issues that negatively impacted their sense of belonging in the physics community, such as citing unhealthy expectations and hostile environments. In addition, personal non-academic (e.g., health-related) reasons were also frequently mentioned. Finally, a lack of available support structures contributed to students’ discontinuing their graduate studies. Understanding the mechanisms behind student departure is the first step in making positive changes to increase retention for all students in physics.

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