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Re: Introductory Undergraduate Physics Sequence



At 12:14 PM 6/15/99 -0400, Robert A Cohen <bbq@ESU.EDU> wrote:
|My colleagues and I here at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania
|have been discussing the introductory undergraduate physics sequence here.
|Actually, we have two sequences. One is for engineers, chemists and
|physicists, and utilizes calculus. The other is for life scientists,
|earth/space scientists and middle-school teachers, and does not utilize
|calculus.

The algebra based course is for those who will not likely use physics again
to any great degree -- You criteria should not be just which topics should
we feel obligated to stuff into them, but how interesting can wee make the
material we do cover.

For a few years I taught Kane and Sternheim to a class which consisted
mostly of nursing majors. I covered nearly ALL of the book, BUT the
examples utilized were germane to the students.

There was the obligatory N#2 in linear and rotational motion and the
conservation laws, but the examples were all _people_ and experiences that
the students might well have had. Levers covered the elbow and foot.
Sound covered Doppler and the ear. E&M covered the nervous system. (a
separate chapter in K&S) Fluids covered the blood system and how to take
heart pressure (They will never learn this anywhere else -- certainly not
in nursing classes), and atomic and nuclear radiation as it applies to the
bio fields and nursing.

AND they learned how to convert units by multiplying by one -- maybe the
most valuable topic -- this would keep them from killing someone someday --
AND they all passed their required pharmacology test -- (Something the
nursing division could not get them to do) -- and this much to the
distress of the nursing faculty -- because they couldn't understand how the
students did the conversions without mistakes!

All the topics were there, but in a form that they found _valuable_.

My suggestion: don't worry about topics, worry about style and student
absorption -- and use K&S.

Jim Green
mailto:JMGreen@sisna.com
http://users.sisna.com/jmgreen