Related papers: Introducing interdisciplinary science to second ye…
The tremendous advances in computer science in the last few decades have provided the platform to address and solve complex problems using interdisciplinary research. In this paper, we investigate how the extent of interdisciplinarity in…
Identifying and understanding student difficulties with physics content in a wide variety of topical areas is an active research area within the PER community. In many cases, physics topics appear multiple times in different contexts across…
Science, being a social enterprise, is subject to fragmentation into groups that focus on specialized areas or topics. Often new advances occur through cross-fertilization of ideas between sub-fields that otherwise have little overlap as…
The traditional approach to studying student understanding presents a question and uses the student answers to make inferences about their knowledge. However, this method does not capture the range of possible alternative ideas available to…
Biological molecules, like all active matter, use free energy to generate force and motion which drive them out of thermal equilibrium, and undergo inherent dynamic interconversion between metastable free energy states separated by levels…
Students' sometimes contradictory ideas about ATP (adenosine triphosphate) and the nature of chemical bonds have been studied in the biology and chemistry education literatures, but these topics are rarely part of the introductory physics…
Social physics is an active and diverse field in which many scientists with formal training in physics study a broad class of complex social phenomena. Social physics investigates societal problems but most often does not count on the…
Fueled by breakthrough technology developments, the biological, biomedical, and behavioral sciences are now collecting more data than ever before. There is a critical need for time- and cost-efficient strategies to analyze and interpret…
A project known as "Physics in Films" currently underway at UCF is designed to generate renewed interest and excitement in the standard "Physical Science" course. In the initial, developmental phase of the project the instructors selected…
Science education at all levels is currently undergoing dramatic changes to its curricula and developing assessments for these new curricula is paramount. We have used the basis of many of these new changes (scientific practices,…
We present a collection of biophysics examination problems that focus on electrodiffusion, the superposition principle, and currents in RC circuits, leading towards an understanding of the Hodgkin-Huxley model of action potentials. These…
Exciting scientific results such as the discovery of the Higgs boson offer a great opportunity to engage young people in particle physics. International Particle Physics Masterclasses highlight how high school students across the world can…
Upper-division physics students spend much of their time solving problems. In addition to their basic skills and background, their epistemic framing can form an important part of their ability to learn physics from these problems.…
High Energy Particle Physics (HEP) faces challenges over the coming decades with a need to attract young people to the field and STEM careers, as well as a need to recognize, promote and sustain those in the field who are making important…
Artificial life is a research field studying what processes and properties define life, based on a multidisciplinary approach spanning the physical, natural and computational sciences. Artificial life aims to foster a comprehensive study of…
When considering performing an Introductory Physics for Life Sciences course transformation for one's own institution, life science majors' achievement goals are a necessary consideration to ensure the pedagogical transformation will be…
The field of ageing science has gone through remarkable progress in recent decades, yet many fundamental questions remain unanswered or unexplored. Here we present a curated list of 100 open problems in ageing and longevity science. These…
Despite the spectacular achievements of molecular biology in the second half of the twentieth century and the crucial advances it permitted in cancer research, the fight against cancer has brought some disillusions. It is nowadays more and…
We present two programs that address needs to better prepare graduate students for their roles as professional physicists, particularly in the areas of teaching and education research. The two programs, Preparing Future Physicists (PFP) and…
Research suggests that interacting with more peers about physics course material is correlated with higher student performance. Some studies, however, have demonstrated that different topics of peer interactions may correlate with their…