New Perspectives in Science Education

Novel developments in STEM fields provide, besides advancement of knowledge, new opportunities in the classroom to enhance students’ educational experience and to facilitate their understanding of these new concepts. It is well accepted that physics is, as most of the other STEM disciplines, very visual and hands-on. As such, this paper presents examples of experiments and lab activities employed in several physics courses that help to reinforce the material presented in lectures. These multipurpose experiments and lab activities are portable, short, and easy to implement. They could be used in multiple courses either at the introductory or at advanced level. Several activities also include technical writing and communication and some address ethical and social aspects in STEM fields. Most important, students can experience hands-on and visualize advance techniques or new concepts.

Keywords: physics courses, demos, class activities, student engagement

References: 

[1] D. C. Giancoli, “Physics for scientists and engineers with modern physics”, Pearson Prentice Hall, 4th edition (2008)

[2] R. A. Serway, C. J. Moses, C. A Moyer, “Modern physics”, Cengage Learning, 3rd edition (2005)

[3] M. Di Ventra, S. Evoy, J. R. Heflin, Jr., “Introduction to nanoscale science and technology”, Kluwer Academic Publishers (2004)