Collaborative Proposal - Reforming Physics

January, 2002 Collaborative Proposal - Reforming Physics: Algebra-based Physics with Human Applications

Robert G. Fuller and Vicki L. Plano Clark [email protected] - [email protected] University of Nebraska - Lincoln, NE

Beth Ann Thacker Nancy L. Beverly Christopher D. Wentworth [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Texas Tech University Mercy College Mark W. Plano Clark [email protected] Doane College

Project Summary Reform movements in calculus and in physics education have shown the advantage of active methods in lively applications for improving students’ conceptual understandings. Research has shown that the learning of diverse groups of students is enhanced by the use of multimedia. The Mathematics across the Curriculum projects supported by the NSF have shown the efficacy of imbedding mathematics within other disciplines. This project proposes to bring all of these insights together with interesting human applications of physics to reform college physics. This project will result in a complete set of course materials and background physics notes that can be used in a wide variety of institutional settings to offer a reformed college physics course to diverse student audiences. In addition to the human applications, the interactive learning methods encouraged by these materials will be especially helpful to enable the students to learn by methods of inquiry. The project co-PIs at UNL, Texas Tech University, Mercy College and Doane College will develop content topics with the help of a mathematics consultant. They will field-test and assess the materials in cooperation with the evaluation consultant. Materials developed at each institution will be field-tested at the other cooperating institutions and tested materials will be available for commercial distribution. By the fall of 2004, a complete reformed college physics course materials featuring human applications supported by interactive multimedia and mathematical modeling will be available for use across the nation. Faculty enhancement institutes will be held using these materials. The use of these materials for the learning of physics concepts by inquiry methods will be advocated. The appropriateness of the multimedia and mathematical modeling materials for a wide range of students will be demonstrated.

support provided by NSF DUE grants: No. 0088780 (CCLI-EMD) and DUE-0088712 (CCLI-EMD) Visit our website:http://www.doane.edu/hpp/ (over) Doane College Speech and Hearing Module

The work at Doane College has focused on developing activities related to speech and hearing and on developing some multimedia experiences that will aid in understanding wave phenomena. To date, we have written and tested several activities related to speech.

The speech activities provide motivation for learning the following physics principles:

1. Simple harmonic motion 2. Hooke's law 3. Describing mechanical waves: pulses and periodic waves 4. Define pressure 5. Predicting wave speed from properties of the medium for both sound and waves on a string 6. Superposition of waves 7. Standing wave phenomena 8. Describe basic properties of fluids in motion: laminar flow, turbulent flow, equation of continuity 9. Bernoulli's principle

Student response to human speech-based activities has been positive. The following graphics show a simple mechanical model of the larynx used to explore speech production, along with Fast Fourier Transform data from the model and from a human voice.

Larynx model ready for data Human Voice FFT: Larynx Model FFT: acquisition

Preliminary versions of the activities can be viewed at the Humanized Physics Project web site: http://www.doane.edu/hpp/ We have developed several video clips using a high speed digital camera. They concern harmonic motion and wave phenomena. Several of these video clips are available for viewing at the Doane College Web-based Physics Video Library:

http://www.doane.edu/physics/PhysicsImageLibrary/videolibrary.html