Bulletin of the American Physical Society
16th Annual Meeting of the Northwest Section of the APS
Volume 60, Number 6
Thursday–Saturday, May 14–16, 2015; Pullman, Washington
Session E3: Physics Education, History and Public Outreach |
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Chair: Nicholas Cerruti, Washington State University Room: Webster Physical Sciences B12 |
Saturday, May 16, 2015 1:30PM - 2:00PM |
E3.00001: Improving Quantum Mechanics Instruction Using Tutorials Invited Speaker: Gina Passante At the end of their degree, most physics majors have proven that they can successfully solve some quantitative quantum mechanics problems. However, researchers have found that many students struggle to answer conceptual questions on the same topics. The finding of this discrepancy in students' qualitative and quantitative abilities is not new to the physics education research community, as a wealth of studies has shown this to be true throughout undergraduate physics instruction. Quantum mechanics is becoming increasingly relevant for STEM majors, especially as quantum technologies emerge. Efforts are being made to better understand the difficulties students have when learning quantum mechanics. The Physics Education Group at the University of Washington has been developing a set of \textit{Tutorials} for upper-division quantum mechanics. In this talk I will discuss some of the most common difficulties students face and the tutorials that help to improve student understanding. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, May 16, 2015 2:00PM - 2:30PM |
E3.00002: Making calculus tangible Invited Speaker: David Roundy I will present two of our current efforts at Oregon State towards making calculus (both integral and differental) more concrete for middle-division physics majors. In electrostatics, our students find challenging integration over charge densities using spherical and cylindrical coordinates. We encourage them to think of integration in terms of ``chopping, multiplying and adding.'' In order to better facilitate the development of this understanding, we have incorporated into our curriculum a computational lab course, in which students write programs to numerically solve problems similar to those they are tackling analytically in class. By the end of the junior year, students encounter thermal physics, in which partial derivatives and total differentials play an important role. These derivatives require mathematical concepts that are typically new to students, while involving physical properties such as entropy and temperature that are themselves conceptually challenging. In order to facilitate mastery of the mathematics of partial derivatives, we introduced the Partial Derivative Machine, which is a mechanical analogue of thermodynamics, and enables students to grapple with the mathematics of total differentials and partial derivatives in a more tangible context. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, May 16, 2015 2:30PM - 2:42PM |
E3.00003: Comparing Student Understanding of Addition of Vectors for Multiple Points of Instruction and Physical Contexts Paul Emigh, Peter Shaffer The Physics Education Group at the University of Washington has been examining student understanding of addition of vectors throughout introductory physics. We present results from the administration of a qualitative question about the magnitudes of vector sums to students in the first, second, and third quarters of a calculus-based introductory physics course. We also compare student performance on versions of this question asked for a variety of different physical contexts, including velocity, force, and momentum. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, May 16, 2015 2:42PM - 2:54PM |
E3.00004: \textit{Sparking Imaginations}: a museum-style exhibit on the history of electrical science and electrical power generation Amelia VanEngen Spivey, Amy Fisher From late October of 2014 through mid-January of 2015, the \textit{Sparking Imaginations} exhibit was on display at Collins Memorial Library at the University of Puget Sound. This museum-style exhibit detailed the history of electrical science from Benjamin Franklin through the development of the Rural Electrification Act and discussed electrical power generation in the Tacoma, Washington area and in the present-day United States. The exhibit featured primary source materials from the Collins Memorial Library (including items from the Senator Homer T. Bone collection, an early advocate for public utilities in Congress), instruments from the University of Puget Sound's Physics Department (including a replica of an eighteenth-century friction machine, a nineteenth-century galvanometer, and a dissectible transformer), and historic photographs, power meters, and gauges provided by Tacoma Public Utilities. Patrons were also able to explore hands-on demonstrations such as the ``human battery,'' a hand-crank generator, and an induction pendulum. In this presentation, we will describe the exhibit and the impact that it had on the Puget Sound campus and the broader Tacoma community. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, May 16, 2015 2:54PM - 3:06PM |
E3.00005: James Clerk Maxwell's life, science, and early legacy: some recent scholarship Philip L. Marston Since the International Year of Light recognizes Maxwell's seminal 1865 paper joining the sciences of optics, electricity, and magnetism [1], it is appropriate to examine some recent scholarship concerning Maxwell and his early influence. At the time of Maxwell's death in 1879, his contributions to other areas of physics were so widely appreciated that Maxwell's friend Tait asserted that Maxwell ``\textellipsis had no rival\textellipsis in the whole wide domain of molecular forces\textellipsis '' in connection with his initial and advanced versions of his statistical kinetic theory of gases and his masterful measurements of the viscosity of gases. There was significant public interest in Maxwell's opinions on various topics even prior to Hertz's experimental demonstration of electromagnetic waves in the late 1880s. Some of Maxwell's perspectives are evident from one of his anonymous publications [2] and recently discovered correspondence [3].\\[4pt] [1] J. C. Maxwell, Phil. Trans. Royal Soc. 155, 459-512 (1865).\\[0pt] [2] P. L. Marston, Am. J. Phys. 75, 731-740 (2007).\\[0pt] [3] P. L. Marston, in \textit{James Clerk Maxwell: Perspectives on his Life and Work}, edited by R. Flood et al. (Univ. Press, Oxford, 2014). [Preview Abstract] |
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