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University extension activities play a fundamental role in bridging the gap between academia and society by fostering the socialization of scientific knowledge. This study reports and analyzes an outreach activity conducted in a public…
We discuss the development, implementation, and assessment of a course for science undergraduates designed to help them develop an awareness and a deeper appreciation of the intellectual demands of physics teaching. The course focused on…
For many students, introductory college science courses are often the only opportunity in their formal higher education to be exposed to science, shaping their view of the subject, their scientific literacy, and their attitudes towards…
Physics has a reputation among majority of life sciences students for being very complicated and tough. If we leave students with this impression, it is likely that students see physics class as useless and irrelevant to life sciences.…
The objective of this project is to compare the effectiveness of teaching styles used in high school physics classes and the methods used to assess them. We would like to determine those approaches to physics at the high schools that work…
Being aware of the motivation problems observed in many scientific oriented careers, we present two experiences to expose to college students to environments, methodologies and discovery techniques addressing contemporary problems. This…
Research has shown that it is challenging to change departmental culture to support the adoption of transformed teaching practices. Michigan State University is working to transform its introductory physics courses by engaging faculty in…
At many universities, astronomy is a popular way for non-science majors to fulfill a general education requirement. Because general-education astronomy may be the only college-level science course taken by these students, it is the last…
National studies conducted over many years show that, while most Americans are interested in science and support federal funding of scientific research, the scientific literacy of the public is very low. Why this situation exists and who is…
Over the past year and a half we have developed an innovative approach to the teaching of `Physical Science', a general education course typically found in the curricula of nearly every college and university. The new approach uses popular…
Between 1984 and 2011, the percentage of US bachelor degrees awarded in physics declined by 25%, in chemistry declined by 33%, and overall in physical sciences and engineering fell 40%. Data suggest that these declines are correlated to a…
We describe the development of a junior-senior level course for Physics majors designed to teach Mathematica skills in support of their undergraduate coursework, but also to introduce students to modern research level results. Standard…
Writing is a critical skill for modern science, enabling collaboration, scientific discourse, public outreach, and more. Accordingly, it is important to consider how physicists and astronomers are trained to write. This study aims to…
Scientific research involves mathematical modelling in the context of an interactive balance between theory, experiment and computation. However, computational methods and tools are still far from being appropriately integrated in the high…
We report on a laboratory activity carried out together with secondary school (high-school) students, with the aim of increasing their interest toward historical scientific instruments and stimulate their approach to scientific knowledge.…
Despite the large body of research showing that students in STEM classes at all levels learn better via active learning than they do via lecture, post-secondary physics and astronomy (P&A) faculty members continue to primarily use…
Introducing Modern Physics represents an increasingly urgent need, towards which physics education concentrates many efforts. In order to contribute to this attempt, at the Department of Mathematics and Physics of Roma Tre University in…
To give teenagers a new, everyday perspective on STEM topics, we use particle physics as our main topic to engage young students. Our strategy is designed to demystify particle physics, making it more accessible and attractive early in high…
The physics teaching particularly the optics teaching always have faced motivational problems, mostly due to the loss of the link between the social practice and the daily life of the student. Moreover, the laboratory practices have lost…
How students use mathematics in their physics classes has been studied extensively in the physics education literature. In addition to specific mathematical methods in specific physics contexts, possible effects of more general "cultural"…