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HERETICAL IDEA
I have an opinion, (not well thought out , but discussed with scientist
friends, not all physicists) that non-science majors shouldn't take an
introductory physics course; and for a lot of the reasons Dewey mentions. I
might really be needed for these students is something more along the lines
of year course in Science, i.e. a science 101 if you will. This would
undoubtably be a multi-disciplinary course with a heavy physics component
and laboratory work. But would necessarily involve important scientific
ideas coming from other disciplines then physics; modern molecular biology
is an obvious need; for scientific literacy and understanding in the general
college educated non-science major population. That is, these 95% that
aren't being served well. I would like to see more physics educators think
in these terms and try to develope such courses with their other physics
colleagues. It would take a lot of work, but I think would serve this
population better, society better than taking a non-science major physics
course, or chem course or bio course to fulfill the science core.
I hope the above paragraph, will start a blizzard of discussion and
comments.
Joel
A simple place to begin, as far as I'm concerned, would be to reserve the
vocational training strictly for physics and engineering majors and for
everyone else (K - 12) and college non-science majors develop courses in
which the *students'* understanding concerning the *phenomena* are the
object of attention. I think even the physics and engineering majors
would be all the better for this approach of partitioning the thrust of
courses at the different levels.